Media Wall Of Fame

 

FORD C. FRICK '15

Inducted: October, 2006

Ford C. Frick ’15 was a talented print journalist, sportscaster and writer who was able to turn a love of sports into a career at the helm of professional baseball.

After graduating from DePauw University in 1915, Frick moved to Colorado where he taught high school, worked for the War Department, opened an advertising agency and wrote various columns for the Colorado Springs Gazette,the Rocky Mountain News and the Colorado Springs Telegraph.

Frick moved to New York in 1922 and joined the sports staff of the New York American, and a year later the Evening Journal, where he covered the New York Yankees and ended up ghostwriting Babe Ruth’s Own Book of Baseball. In 1930, Frick began sportscasting with legendary New York radio station WOR, the first radio station to devote time solely to covering sporting events anywhere in the US.

By 1934 Frick was named the first director of the National League Service Bureau, in charge of all publicity for Major League Baseball. He excelled rapidly at the position and in less than a year was elected as President of the National League.

His first act as President was to propose a National Baseball Museum, which later became the Baseball Hall of Fame. During his tenure as President he was also instrumental in saving several franchises from bankruptcy, and his popularity with owners was a factor in Frick’s unanimous election to Commissioner of Baseball in 1951.

As Commissioner, Frick guided the game through a turbulent period that saw expansion from eight to ten teams in each league, the free-agent draft, the college scholarship plan and a refinement of baseball’s relationship with national TV.

Ford C. Frick was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1970. Shortly after his death in 1978, the Baseball Hall of Fame created the Ford C. Frick award, which is presented annually to sportscasters who make a major contribution to baseball broadcasting.

DePauw University honored Frick with the Old Gold Goblet in 1952 and the honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in 1955. He was named to the DePauw University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1989.

Frick in the 1915 "Mirage" yearbook

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