Graham McNamee gets some well-deserved recognition

The late sports radio pioneer Graham McNamee has been named the recipient of the 2016 Ford Frick award for excellence in broadcasting.

From the Hall of Fame press release:

Graham McNamee, whose national play-by-play of the World Series in the earliest days of radio transformed the one-time opera singer into a household name, has been selected as the 2016 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually for excellence in broadcasting by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

“Graham McNamee defined what it was to broadcast baseball games to a nationwide audience,” said Jeff Idelson, President of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. “Without any blueprint, he created a genre, bringing baseball to an even bigger, national stage: The new medium of radio. The legendary voices of the last three-quarters of a century can trace their lineage straight to Graham. Baseball’s scope and popularity were forever widened in the wake of his pioneering work.”

Born July 10, 1888 in Washington, D.C. and raised in St. Paul, Minn., McNamee aspired to be an opera singer. But during a lunch break from jury duty in 1923, McNamee strolled into radio station WEAF in New York City and auditioned for a job as an announcer. The station was impressed with his diction and voice and hired him. When the 1923 World Series arrived featuring the Yankees and the Giants, McNamee was paired with legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice on the air – and quickly demonstrated a knack for entertaining reportage of the games.

McNamee’s work at the World Series vaulted him to the head of the class of announcers in the fledgling world of national radio broadcasts. He helped establish the role of NBC at major events, calling auto races, boxing matches, political conventions and the return of Charles Lindbergh from his transatlantic flight in 1927. Just like Lindbergh, McNamee was featured on the cover of Time magazine for his exploits in 1927.

But it was through baseball games where McNamee reached his greatest audience. He called the World Series each year from 1923 through 1934 and also worked the first four MLB All-Star Games from 1933 through 1936.

McNamee passed away in 1942 at the age of 53.

McNamee was chosen from a list of 10 finalists selected in October, featuring three fan selections from the online vote and seven broadcasters chosen by a research committee from the Cooperstown-based museum.

The 18-member electorate, comprised of the 14 living Frick Award recipients and four broadcast historians/columnists, includes Frick honorees Marty Brennaman, Dick Enberg, Joe Garagiola, Jaime Jarrin, Tony Kubek, Tim McCarver, Denny Matthews, Jon Miller, Eric Nadel, Felo Ramirez, Vin Scully, Bob Uecker, Dave Van Horne and Bob Wolff, and historians/columnists Bob Costas (NBC and MLB Network), Barry Horn (Dallas Morning News), Ted Patterson (historian) and Curt Smith (historian).

It’s worth pointing out that Smith has written numerous excellent books on the topic of baseball on radio and TV.

While McNamee has yet to be the subject of a stand-alone biography, he is included in many overviews about the history of baseball broadcasting including

Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball’s 101 All-Time Best Announcers, by Smith
Calling the Game: Baseball Broadcasting from 1920 to the Present, by Stuart Shea and Gary Gillette
Broadcasting Baseball: A History of the National Pastime on Radio and Television, by Eldon Ham
The Golden Voices of Baseball, by Ted Patterson
Crack of the Bat: A History of Baseball on the Radio, by James Walker and Pat Hughes
Baseball over the Air: The National Pastime on the Radio and in the Imagination, by Tony Silvia