Baseball Hall of Fame Spurns Niehaus Again
Ex-Houston Astros broadcaster Gene Elston is winner of the Ford Frick Broadcasting Award, and, as such, will be inducted into the Hall of Fame this summer.
Elston beat out nine other finalists for the award, including the only one who deserves it, Mariner broadcaster Dave Niehaus.
Niehaus was also a finalist last year, when he inexplicably lost out to noted malapropist Jerry Coleman.
Coleman chose to use language, considered the greatest triumph of the human species, to deliver compelling information like this:
"And Kansas is at Chicago tonight or is it Chicago at Kansas City? Well, no matter as Kansas leads in the eighth four-to-four."
We digress. It was easy to be angry last year, since Jerry Coleman was so clearly inferior to Dave Niehaus in every way that we can imagine without x-ray vision. Gene Elston, on the other hand, we've never heard of. He's apparently popular enough to have a website supporting his election to the Hall, but this website hasn't been updated in four years.
The site contains clips of Elston's announcing. He's not bad. But compare this audio of Elston calling a no-hitter (almost non-chalantly) to any of these tour de forces of pure drama delivered Niehaus-style.
Oh, but wait! That doesn't matter! Voters on the award used this criteria:
Voters were asked to base their selections on the following criteria: longevity; continuity with a club; honors, including national assignments such as the World Series and All-Star Games; and popularity with fans.
Nothing...NOTHING about whether the broadcaster was any good or not!!! Only that they were popular and stuck around for a long time. Thank God the player voting isn't based on those criteria, or Rance Mulliniks would have a plaque.
Someone else spouts off about how awesome Niehaus is here.
