The Old LeftHander

A few thoughts on Joe Nuxhall, who today was named as one of ten finalists for the Ford C. Frick Award, baseball's highest honor for a broadcaster.

Nuxhall passed away in November after battling cancer and other ailments for a number of years. Even last year, though, he could still be heard on WLW alongside Marty Brennaman, calling the occasional Reds home game. Anyone who grew up in the 1970s to 1990s in the Midwest and cared anything about baseball knows Joe Nuxhall. According to everyone who knew him, he was a pleasure to be with, a total class act, both on and off the air.

But Nuxhall as a Frick finalist? I'm sorry, but Joe Nuxhall simply does not belong in this conversation. I recognize that he was nominated in an emotional outpouring of support following his passing, but he simply is not in the class of the past Frick winners, including his longtime broadcast partner. While Brennaman has always been the more honest and willing to criticize of the pair, Nuxhall was the down home, drink a beer and fill the air with complete silence for long moments type. There was a joke in Cincinnati that if you turned on WLW and heard total silence for twelve seconds or more, you knew it was Joe's inning to do the play by play.

Joe caused a lot of laughter, and he certainly is associated by so many with the Big Red Machine and Reds baseball in general. But, now that the old left hander has rounded third and headed for home for the last time, let's not let our emotions run amok. Nuxhall was a great family man, tremendous with charity and the community, and a wonderful part of the baseball world for many, many years. But a Hall of Famer he is not.