COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. -- John Rooney of the St. Louis Cardinals and Brian Anderson of the Milwaukee Brewers are newcomers to the ballot for the Hall of Fame's 2026 Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in baseball broadcasting.
Skip Caray, Rene Cardenas, Gary Cohen, Jacques Doucet, Duane Kuiper and John Sterling return from last year's ballot, when Tom Hamilton was elected to receive the 2025 award.
Joe Buck is back after being dropped last year, and Dan Shulman is on for the third time in four years.
Cohen and Doucet have appeared on four straight ballots, and Kuiper also was on the ballot for the 2023 award.
This is the fourth of four consecutive elections that will consider broadcasters whose careers extend into the wild card era, which began in 1995. The pre-wild card era will be considered in 2026 voting for the award presented during the Hall of Fame's 2027 induction weekend, and the cycle will then repeat over the next five years.
The winner will be announced Dec. 10 at the winter meetings in Orlando, Florida, and honored during the Hall's July 25 awards presentation, a day ahead of induction ceremonies.
A broadcaster must have 10 continuous years of experience with a network or team to be considered, and the ballot was picked by a subcommittee of past winners that includes Marty Brennaman, Joe Castiglione and Bob Costas along with broadcast historians David J. Halberstam and Curt Smith. At least one candidate must be a foreign-language broadcaster.
Voters are 13 past winners -- Brennaman, Castiglione, Costas, Ken Harrelson, Pat Hughes, Jaime Jarrín, Tony Kubek, Denny Matthews, Al Michaels, Jon Miller, Eric Nadel and Dave Van Horne -- plus historians Halberstam, Smith and former Dallas Morning News writer Barry Horn.