Tony Kubek goes into the Hall of Fame as this year's Ford Frick Award winner.

Kubek is the first exclusive television analyst to win the Frick Award, which has been presented annually since 1978. Kubek also becomes the first primarily television broadcaster to be honored since Bob Wolff in 1995 and the first Frick Award winner to have called games for a Canadian team.

"For an entire generation of baseball fans, Tony Kubek was the face and the voice of the game," said Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson. "In the days before all-sports TV networks, Tony brought baseball into your living room every Saturday afternoon for almost three decades. His straightforward style, quick and detailed analysis and no-nonsense commentary on the game's nuances gave viewers an insider's look at what the players were experiencing on the field."

Kubek and Curt Gowdy were my national television broadcasters. I started watching baseball in 1969, the year Tony moved into the booth for NBC's primary game of the week. I always thought Kubek and Gowdy made an excellent team. Later in his career, he was paired with Bob Costas on the backup game, as Vin Scully and Joe Garagiola handled the main game. Costas and Kubek, in my opinion, were the better duo, and only CBS's billion dollar bid for the game in 1990 kept the two of them from becoming the lead NBC team.

Congratulations to Tony Kubek! It's a good week for former Bronx middle infielders.