DALLAS -- Tom Hamilton heard the words "Hall of Famer” and immediately burst into tears.
“Well, whoever had under 15 seconds before he cries, you won,” Hamilton said, laughing to stop his eyes from welling.
It had been nearly an hour since he got the news, yet it still hadn’t hit him. But it was true, the National Baseball Hall of Fame announced on Wednesday that Hamilton, the longtime voice of Cleveland baseball, is the 2025 Ford C. Frick Award winner. The 10 finalists included: Skip Caray, Rene Cardenas, Gary Cohen, Jacques Doucet, Ernie Johnson Sr., Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper, Dave Sims, John Sterling and Hamilton.
Hamilton will be honored during the Hall of Fame Awards Presentation as part of Hall of Fame Weekend, July 25-28, 2025. Hamilton becomes the 49th winner of the Frick Award, as he earned the highest point total in a vote conducted by the Hall of Fame’s 16-member Frick Award Committee.
- For a complete list of Frick Award winners, click here.
“I'm so humbled,” Hamilton said. “I'm so grateful and can't believe it happened because I certainly looked at that list of 10, and if you were to rank 'em, I would've put myself 10. … I know how blessed I've been and how fortunate I was to get that call today.”
The honor is presented annually (on July 26 next year in Cooperstown) to a broadcaster for “major contributions to baseball.” And no one fits that description more than Hamilton.
The now 70-year-old first got the call from Cleveland in 1990, asking him to join Herb Score in the radio booth to call Major League Baseball games. He couldn’t believe it.
“When you get the call that you got the job, you won the lottery,” Hamilton said.
Aside from his own father, Hamilton said there wasn’t a man in his life he learned more from than Score, who he sat beside until Score retired in 1997. That’s when Hamilton stepped into the coveted play-by-play role, and he’s been the voice of Cleveland ever since.
"I learned a valuable lesson from Herb,” Hamilton said. “Your club’s record or how the season is going should never have any bearing on that night’s broadcast. There are people whose whole day is highlighted by a ballgame. … You owe those people your very best.”
Hamilton experienced the worst season in franchise history. He’s called three World Series. He’s covered nine different managers. He’s broadcasted more than 5,000 Cleveland games. And he’s become a legend around the sport.
“With an unmatched love for Cleveland, Tom Hamilton has narrated the story of one of the franchise’s most successful eras since joining the team’s broadcast crew in 1990,” said Josh Rawitch, President of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. “Guardians fans adopted Tom as one of their own as soon as he arrived in Cleveland thanks to his knowledgeable play-by-play and passionate calls of some of the franchise’s most historic moments. For a generation of listeners, Tom Hamilton is the very definition of Cleveland baseball.”
Ask any Guardians fan what their favorite “Hammy” call is, and you’ll probably get a different answer from each person. It could be the Jason Giambi pinch-hit walk-off homer in 2013. Maybe it’s the Rajai Davis home run call in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series. You’ll definitely hear the fight between José Ramírez and Tim Anderson that prompted him to instinctively yell, “Down goes Anderson! Down goes Anderson!” Or maybe it’s his simple introduction to every game: “And we’re underway at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario.”
The more calls that flood into your mind at the mention of a name, the more legendary the broadcaster.
To Hamilton, this was once Earl Gillespie. As a child, Hamilton grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. He was too young as an 11- or 12-year-old to help his parents milk the cows. So, he stayed back and turned on his radio to hear Gillespie call Milwaukee games on a warm summer night. It was then that Hamilton realized what he wanted to do when he grew up.
After years of doing basketball and football broadcasts, Hamilton wanted more reps in baseball. He was given an opportunity to call Triple-A Columbus Clippers games from 1987-89 just before getting the call up to the big leagues. The rest, as they say, is history.
“For 35 years, I haven't worked,” Hamilton said. “How many of us get up every morning and can't wait to go to work?”
Gone are the days of gathering around the radio in the living room to listen to how your favorite team is performing on a given night. Yet, as the calendar inches toward the year 2025, Hamilton’s effortless ability to wax poetic about the game he so obviously loves causes much of the Cleveland fan base to opt to tune in to the radio instead.
It’s primarily because of his effortless talent once his headset is on but also because of his welcoming personality.
If you meet him once, Hamilton will never forget your name. He’s rarely seen without a smile. He can talk to anyone for hours, and often does. Players get excited to meet him, rather than it being the other way around. And fans are just as excited to run into Hamilton as they are when All-Stars run onto the field.
Hamilton doesn’t believe that. He never will. He genuinely believes he’s just a random person doing one of his hobbies and somehow getting paid for it.
But there’s nothing ordinary about Hamilton. That’s why he’s a Hall of Famer.