Tony Kubek voted to Hall of Fame.
Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2008 10:50 am
Ford Frick Award, the broadcasters' wing.
As he observes in the article below, he was always an analyst, the "second banana," and not given to verbal flourishes, so the award is a bit of a surprise.
The article mentions that he has been away from baseball for nearly 15 years. An article I read a few months ago indicated that he had not watched a ball game in all that time.
But he is doing worthwhile stuff now.
From today's NY Times:
Tony Kubek broke from baseball in 1994, resigning as a Yankees analyst on the MSG Network. He didn’t like players’ attitudes, the strike that ended the season early, and the years of travel. And he wanted to spend more time at home with his family in Wisconsin.
These days, he teaches English as a second language to Hmong immigrants and Latinos, mostly Mexicans. The closest he gets to the game is Moose Skowron’s fantasy camp in Florida, at which he puts on a uniform and watches aging campers pull muscles.
But on Tuesday, Kubek, a former Yankees shortstop who is now 73, took a step back into the world he left behind: he was named the winner of the Ford C. Frick Award, which the National Baseball Hall of Fame presents annually to a broadcaster.
“For want of a better word, I was a second banana,” he said by telephone from his home in Appleton, Wis., then went on to credit his on-air partners, his producers, directors and cameramen. “So this is a surprise in that regard. But I got a letter from Joe Garagiola last year, and he said, ‘Tony, this is your year,’ so I thought maybe it would be.”
Kubek’s election was overdue: he was a smart, serious and candid analyst for NBC, the Toronto Blue Jays and the Yankees. His technical mastery of baseball fundamentals made him the model of a modern analyst, far more than a color man. He offered no frills.
“There was a kind of stubborn authenticity to him,” said Bob Costas, one of Kubek’s NBC partners, after Jim Simpson, Curt Gowdy and Garagiola. “He viewed the game in a certain way: anything that didn’t feel authentically baseball to him, he recoiled from it.”
In addition to his willingness to be critical of players or owners, Costas said, “He was honestly appreciative of a well-turned double play; more than a spectacular play, he liked the guy who moved into the hole when he knew a changeup was coming.”
When it was over, when he did not want to become too curmudgeonly or dislike what he was doing, he went home. He preferred not to be a broadcast lifer.
Ten years ago, Kubek said, he and his wife, Margaret, a former social worker, began to meet Hmong immigrants, who are ethnic Asians.
“We sold some furniture at the Hmong-American partnership, and we started talking to this guy,” he said. “Then I starting shopping in Asian markets and learned how the Hmong came here.”
He added: “I got certified to teach E.S.L., and I’ve helped get kids scholarships and go to college. I do some of my work through my church and some through the Literacy Coalition.”
A few thousand Hmong people live in the Appleton area.
“We help deliver furniture to them, and it’s nice to be invited into their homes, get all the fresh egg rolls, meet the kids, especially the teenagers,” he said. “Most have big families. They want to be upwardly mobile. It’s difficult to teach English, but they’re so grateful for any kind of help. It’s not time consuming, but it’s time intensive.
“I really don’t have much time for baseball. There are just so many things out there to learn, and as long as we’re healthy, we’ll do it. It’s a completely new life.”
Also from the article:
Now that he is in the Hall, it’s time for the organization to expand the Frick’s parameters to allow for the election of Harry Coyle, the NBC director who defined the way we watch baseball. In his credit roll to his colleagues, Kubek cited one of baseball’s seminal sequences: Coyle’s direction of Carlton Fisk’s game-winning, body-English home run to win Game 6 of the 1975 World Series.
As he observes in the article below, he was always an analyst, the "second banana," and not given to verbal flourishes, so the award is a bit of a surprise.
The article mentions that he has been away from baseball for nearly 15 years. An article I read a few months ago indicated that he had not watched a ball game in all that time.
But he is doing worthwhile stuff now.
From today's NY Times:
Tony Kubek broke from baseball in 1994, resigning as a Yankees analyst on the MSG Network. He didn’t like players’ attitudes, the strike that ended the season early, and the years of travel. And he wanted to spend more time at home with his family in Wisconsin.
These days, he teaches English as a second language to Hmong immigrants and Latinos, mostly Mexicans. The closest he gets to the game is Moose Skowron’s fantasy camp in Florida, at which he puts on a uniform and watches aging campers pull muscles.
But on Tuesday, Kubek, a former Yankees shortstop who is now 73, took a step back into the world he left behind: he was named the winner of the Ford C. Frick Award, which the National Baseball Hall of Fame presents annually to a broadcaster.
“For want of a better word, I was a second banana,” he said by telephone from his home in Appleton, Wis., then went on to credit his on-air partners, his producers, directors and cameramen. “So this is a surprise in that regard. But I got a letter from Joe Garagiola last year, and he said, ‘Tony, this is your year,’ so I thought maybe it would be.”
Kubek’s election was overdue: he was a smart, serious and candid analyst for NBC, the Toronto Blue Jays and the Yankees. His technical mastery of baseball fundamentals made him the model of a modern analyst, far more than a color man. He offered no frills.
“There was a kind of stubborn authenticity to him,” said Bob Costas, one of Kubek’s NBC partners, after Jim Simpson, Curt Gowdy and Garagiola. “He viewed the game in a certain way: anything that didn’t feel authentically baseball to him, he recoiled from it.”
In addition to his willingness to be critical of players or owners, Costas said, “He was honestly appreciative of a well-turned double play; more than a spectacular play, he liked the guy who moved into the hole when he knew a changeup was coming.”
When it was over, when he did not want to become too curmudgeonly or dislike what he was doing, he went home. He preferred not to be a broadcast lifer.
Ten years ago, Kubek said, he and his wife, Margaret, a former social worker, began to meet Hmong immigrants, who are ethnic Asians.
“We sold some furniture at the Hmong-American partnership, and we started talking to this guy,” he said. “Then I starting shopping in Asian markets and learned how the Hmong came here.”
He added: “I got certified to teach E.S.L., and I’ve helped get kids scholarships and go to college. I do some of my work through my church and some through the Literacy Coalition.”
A few thousand Hmong people live in the Appleton area.
“We help deliver furniture to them, and it’s nice to be invited into their homes, get all the fresh egg rolls, meet the kids, especially the teenagers,” he said. “Most have big families. They want to be upwardly mobile. It’s difficult to teach English, but they’re so grateful for any kind of help. It’s not time consuming, but it’s time intensive.
“I really don’t have much time for baseball. There are just so many things out there to learn, and as long as we’re healthy, we’ll do it. It’s a completely new life.”
Also from the article:
Now that he is in the Hall, it’s time for the organization to expand the Frick’s parameters to allow for the election of Harry Coyle, the NBC director who defined the way we watch baseball. In his credit roll to his colleagues, Kubek cited one of baseball’s seminal sequences: Coyle’s direction of Carlton Fisk’s game-winning, body-English home run to win Game 6 of the 1975 World Series.