Joe Buck is a broadcasting giant, no matter how you may feel about the latest Ford C. Frick winner

“Another chance to the left side. Hayes waits. The Yankees are champions of baseball!”

Joe Buck’s call of the final out of the 1996 World Series – a foul pop-up caught by Yankees third baseman Charlie Hayes – is not on anyone’s top 10 list for all-time great calls.

But to a certain generation of Yankees fans, who hadn’t seen a World Series title since 1978, Buck’s words bring back sweet, sweet memories.

Those memories came back this week when Buck was named as the 2026 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award, which is presented annually for excellence in broadcasting by the Baseball Hall of Fame.

“Joe Buck a Hall of Famer?” you might ask. “Who else was on the ballot?”

Glad you asked. The 10-person field included two New York legends in Mets play-by-play man Gary Cohen and retired Yankees radio voice John Sterling.

The others were Brian Anderson, Skip Caray, Rene Cardenas, Jacques Doucet, Duane Kuiper, John Rooney and Dan Shulman.

Fine broadcasters all, but we’re in New York, the media mecca. So how is it that Buck, a polarizing figure who as many viewers dislike as like, earned the award, instead of Cohen, who is widely seen as the gold standard of a play-by-play man, or Sterling, who almost defies description for the campy, unique style he brought to Yankees radio during the franchise’s glory years (including that 1996 World Series nearly 30 years ago)?

The answer is simple: The Hall of Fame is a national institution, and the voters who chose Buck include the 13 living Frick recipients and three baseball historians. It’s a small group. It has no geographical bias. It doesn’t exist to vote in your favorite announcer.

Buck, the son of past Frick winner Jack Buck, has called more World Series and All-Star Games on network television than any play-by-play announcer in history. The 1996 World Series was Buck’s first. He was 27. He also called the final outs of the Yankees’ World Series titles in 1998 and 2000.

Commack’s Bob Costas (a Frick winner in 2018) was at the mic when the Yankees won the 1999 World Series. His memorable call: “A pop into shallow left. The New York Yankees. World champions. Team of the decade. Most successful franchise of the century.”

Something tells us that phrasing didn’t just pop into Costas’ mind on the spot. But it artfully fit the end-of-the-millennium moment.

That’s the thing about giving what are essentially lifetime achievement awards to baseball broadcasters: Every fan base has a local announcer they love and think should be honored. But they are local in nature (past Frick winner Harry Caray belongs to Chicago, Joe Castiglione belongs to Boston, etc.).

Buck did call St. Lous Cardinals games, but he's still thought of as national. He belongs to … no one, exactly. And everyone.

If your team was lucky enough to make it to the World Series, you had to listen to (some would say endure) Buck. He is clever (some would say smarmy). But he always knew his stuff, he always lived up to the moment, and especially when he was pared with past Frick winner Tim McCarver, he was a pleasant listen if you weren’t emotionally invested in the outcome of the game.

That’s the problem, isn’t it, with national announcers? Passionate fans of a particular team want their own voices in the booth. But long gone are the days when Phil Rizzuto slid into the national booth for the Yankees when they were in the 1964 and 1976 World Series (the last World Series to feature local announcers as part of the national broadcasting team).

If the Mets ever make it back to the World Series (cough, cough), what Mets fan wouldn’t want Cohen, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez in the booth? But that’s not going to happen. The booth thing, we mean. The Mets will one day be back in the World Series, right?

So while no one seems to love Joe Buck, there’s no reason to hate on him, either. He is a giant in the broadcasting industry, and the Hall of Fame has the right to honor whomever it wants for whatever reason it wants.

Plus, if you really don’t like Buck on baseball you don’t have to listen to him on baseball anymore. He gave up his play-by-play spot after the 2021 season and now does NFL games only.

The epic 2025 World Series between the Dodgers and Blue Jays was called on FOX by Joe Davis, who said after Alejandro Kirk hit into the series-ending double play:

“To beat the champ, you gotta knock ’em out! The Dodgers stand tall and win back-to-back titles.”

Not bad.

Will anyone remember it 30 years from now? Check back then.