Tom Hamilton, the longtime radio voice of the Cleveland Guardians, won the 2025 Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in broadcasting from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
“With an unmatched love for Cleveland, Tom Hamilton has narrated the story of one of the franchise’s most successful eras since joining the team’s broadcast crew in 1990,” Josh Rawitch, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, said in a statement Wednesday. “Guardians fans adopted Tom as one of their own as soon as he arrived in Cleveland thanks to his knowledgeable play-by-play and passionate calls of some of the franchise’s most historic moments.
“For a generation of listeners, Tom Hamilton is the very definition of Cleveland baseball.”
Hamilton has spent 35 years in Cleveland’s radio booth, joining TV analyst Rick Manning as the longest-tenured broadcaster in team history. Hamilton came to Cleveland in 1990 after serving as the voice of the Triple-A Columbus Clippers for three seasons. He joined the legendary pitcher-turned-broadcaster Herb Score in the booth for seven seasons until Score’s retirement in 1997.
Since then, Hamilton has partnered with Mike Hegan, Dave Nelson, Jim Rosenhaus and Matt Underwood on the radio.
Hamilton won the Ford C. Frick Award this year after previously being named a finalist three times. He will be honored during the awards presentation on Hall of Fame Weekend (July 25-28, 2025) in Cooperstown.
Hamilton started his radio career as a DJ for a country music station in Shell Lake, Wisc., before working at WBNS in Columbus, Ohio. He called Columbus Clippers games as a volunteer and reluctantly submitted an audition tape when Cleveland searched for a new broadcast partner for Score ahead of the 1990 season. The team offered Hamilton the job and he moved to Cleveland.
Hamilton’s known in Cleveland for his “Swing and a drive!” call when a Guardian hits a home run and for stressing each syllable in “Strike. Three. Called,” when a pitcher stumps a hitter and for simply shouting “Ballgame!” the instant the Guardians win.
Hamilton has called countless classic moments in club history, including Jim Thome squeezing the final out of the victory that vaulted Cleveland into the postseason in September 1995 and the team erasing a 12-run deficit in a record-setting comeback against the 116-win Seattle Mariners in 2001.
Hamilton voiced the team’s march to Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, highlighted by Rajai Davis’ game-tying home run in the decisive tilt. In 2023, Hamilton went viral for his “Down Goes Anderson!” call when José Ramírez punched the Chicago White Sox’s Tim Anderson in an August game at Progressive Field.
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