The 2011 Baseball Winter Meetings will take place next week in Dallas. Along with all the GM wheeling and dealing, eager young folks looking for a job, and agents trying to get their clients a contract, the Hall of Fame will announce who the Veteran’s Committee elected to the Hall, and the winner of the 2012 Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in broadcasting.

In a year draped with Cardinal Red, two former Cardinals are on the Frick ballot – Tim McCarver and Mike Shannon.

McCarver has been broadcasting games so long it is sometimes easy to forget he played at the Major League level. Tim broke in with the Cardinals in 1959 as a 17-year-old. He became the regular catcher in 1963 and led the league in triples (13) in 1966, the last NL catcher to do so (Carlton Fisk led the AL in 1972). McCarver finished second in the 1967 MVP voting in 1967 to teammate Orlando Cepeda. After that, he was one of the players dealt in the Curt Flood trade on October 7, 1969, that ultimately caused the elimination of the reserve clause in major league baseball. In his later career he was known as the personal caddy for Steve Carlton.

McCarver retired from baseball and the Phillies in 1980 and immediately stepped into the Philadelphia broadcast booth, where he remained through the 1982 season. In 1983 he began a 16 year tenure with the New York Mets. New York, along with Atlanta and Chicago, developed the first ‘superstations’ broadcasting content throughout the country on cable, which brought Mets, Braves, and Cubs baseball into homes nationwide. McCarver first developed his national following through his broadcasting, alongside Ralph Kiner and Steve Zabriskie, on WWOR. McCarver started covering baseball for national affiliates in 1984, and has worked for ABC, CBS, The Baseball Network, and Fox whom he currently broadcasts for. From 2000-2002 he won 3 Emmys for ‘Outstanding Sports Event Analyst’.

Mike Shannon was a teammate of McCarver’s on the El Birdos teams of the 1960s. Shannon, a St Louis native, broke into the majors in 1962 and played his entire career in St Louis. A third baseman, he had some huge hits in the World Series for the 1964 World Champs. He retired after the 1970 season due to nephritis, and joined the Cardinals front office the following season, matriculating to the broadcast booth for the 1972 season. He has been seated there ever since.

Shannon shared the broadcast booth with Jack Buck for 30 years, and has become a local broadcast legend in his own right. From his signature ‘Get Up Baby!’ call anticipating a home run, to numerous ‘Shannonisms’ (which multiple websites list in homage), summer baseball in St Louis just doesn’t sound right without the deep baritone of Mike Shannon.

Both men are deserving of the award, however neither man is likely to win. McCarver’s candidacy is the more robust, but his analysis, while prescient when describing what the catcher is doing, has become dated. He is lampooned frequently, most famously by the now-defunct blog ‘Fire Joe Morgan’. Shannon has never shouldered the national broadcasting workload men like McCarver, Jack Buck, Vin Scully, and others have undertaken, and his years laboring under Buck’s considerable shadow have limited recognition of his work to the local St Louis area.

The 2012 Ford C. Frick winner will be announced on December 7.

Mike Metzger is a contributing writer for I-70 Baseball. He blogs about the San Diego Padres. Follow him on Twitter @metzgermg.

During the offseason we have been taking a look at the past, giving readers a timeline of St. Louis baseball throughout history. Last time we learned about how Roger Bresnahan helped create catcher’s gear and Branch Rickey’s start in baseball.

In the executive branch of the Baseball Hall Of Fame there are many legendary baseball names. Some were commissioners such as Ford Frick and Kenesaw Landis. Some were owners such as Tom Yawkey and Walter O’Malley. However, if you as a baseball fan are unaware of the impact that Branch Rickey has played in baseball, you have missed a tremendous story. He is definitely worthy of his own story, but it is safe to say you readers will be reading his name a lot over the next few weeks from me.

"Gorgeous George" Sisler

In 1915, George Sisler, who had been signed with Rickey’s help and played in half of the season, was already showing signs of the player that was to come. He hit .285 that first year while also pitching 70 innings over 15 games (yes, he was also a pitcher his first two years in the bigs). Over the next five years Sisler emerged as one of the league’s top offensive threats.

1920 was an incredible season for Sisler. Not only did he bat .407 with 19 home runs (remember – this was the Dead Ball Era – home runs were not expected from anyone) and a 1.082 on-base plus slugging percentage, but he slapped 257 hits and picked up 399 total bases. In my research I was shocked to see that “Gorgeous George” did not pick up the 1920 MVP award. Then I caught on – the MVP was not awarded between the years of 1914 and 1922. Tricky!

Unfortunately for Sisler and the Browns, one great player does not a contender make. In fact, the Browns never broke 80 wins in this time period. Better days were ahead, but they would happen without their trailblazing general manager.

After the 1915 season a shake-up happened in the Browns front office. Robert Hedges sold his share in the team to Phil Ball, and Mr. Ball wasted no time making changes. His first act was to remove Rickey from his managerial position and relegate him to just working in the front office and working with purchasing and moving excess minor league players. Why the switch? The answer is prohibition.

Phil Ball was a former cowhand whose lifestyle never changed after he made his millions. Branch was a prohibitionist lawyer who had at one time toured the country in support of a national ban on alcohol. Ball was not going to have someone like that on his team, and said as much. Rickey was hidden away in the Browns front office for the entire 1916 season, and thought he was going to be stuck there forever until he received a visit from another attorney – James C. Jones, attorney for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Jones laid it out like this: the Cardinals had played miserably since their inception in 1899, finishing higher than fourth one time in eighteen years. Helene Britton, who had inherited the team six years ago, was looking to sell, and unless someone came up with the $350,000 that Mrs. Britton was hoping for, the Cardinals would probably be moved out of St. Louis. There was a plan in place, however, and if it worked it would make history. So Jones made it simple for Rickey – if it works and the team stayed in St. Louis, would he switch sides and take over as team president?

Rickey did not hesitate. It hardly mattered what this grand scheme was, because at that point all that mattered was getting out of the Browns’ front office and away from Phil Ball’s unwavering anger towards Rickey’s prohibition ways. As it was, however, the investors that were hoping to buy the team had a revolutionary idea that would change baseball, and they simply called it ‘the Knothole Gang.’ What would happen is that the public would be able to buy stock in the Cardinals, and in exchange for every two shares bought, a season ticket would be given to an underprivileged boy in the St. Louis area. The brilliance of this plan was that not only would the franchise would be able to stay in town, but with so many stockholders now based in St. Louis and all of the Knothole Gang tickets, the fanbase took a tremendous swing from watching the mediocre Browns to the abysmal Cardinals.

Rickey making the jump from the American to the National League St. Louis team did not provide the immediate boost that the Cardinals pretty desperately needed. Eventually the Knothole Gang idea took off, but it took a season to really get going. 1917 was not kind to the Cardinals, and things were made worse when the American League got its revenge for luring Rickey to the NL by snatching manager Miller Huggins away with a huge contract and a chance to manage the Yankees. To make matters worse, World War 1 called and stole away Rickey to train soldiers in the field of chemical warfare, thereby causing him to miss the entirety of the 1918 season. Luckily for the Cardinals, the war ended and Rickey returned to the team before the start of the 1919 season.

Rogers Hornsby

Before the 1919 season, the franchise was starting to circle the drain. The vultures gathered, offering exorbitant amounts for basically the only player on the team that had any kind of start power – Rogers Hornsby. The New York Giants called a meeting with Rickey and offered the Cardinals $150,000 – the exact amount of the Cardinals’ debt – in exchange for Hornsby. Rickey said no. Rickey then turned the tables and offered the Giants $50,000 for a youngster named Frankie Frisch. Charles Stoneham, owner of the Giants, was dumbfounded. Rickey didn’t have $50,000 for some kid that had just been signed and had zero experience in the majors. Rickey didn’t have a quarter for a meal!

Determined to land his man, Stoneham upped his offer for Hornsby – $300,000, take it or leave it. John McGraw, the Giants owner, told Stoneham he was out of his mind. No player was worth that much, much less a player that had yet to really earn any recognition. Rickey held firm. He wanted Frisch. Baffled and outraged, the Giants went to the papers, declaring Rickey and the entire Cardinals organization a bunch of fools. Rickey knew better. The Cardinals needed a savior. They needed money. They needed talent.

They needed a farm system.

Rickey launched his plan. He sold 4,000 more shares of stock in the team and raised $100,000 in capital. New majority owner and team president Sam Breadon had given Rickey full reign to do as he pleased with the team, and with that in mind went to work. The first order of business was to convince Phil Ball and the Browns to let the Cardinals rent Sportsman’s Park for home games so they could sell League Park and get out of the red. After the Board of Education and Public Service Corporation bought the land for a combined $275,000, the team was back in the black and ready to get busy with this new plan of purchasing a farm system.

After the 1919 season Rickey purchased half of the Fort Smith, Arkansas franchise in the Class C Western Association. With that agreement the organization said they would not sell minor leaguers out from under Rickey’s nose. The main problem was that this was a Class C team. What would happen when the players were ready to move up the ladder to the next level of the minors? It looked like Rickey needed to buy another team. Find out more about this one next week!

Angela Weinhold covers the Cardinals for i70baseball.com and writes at Cardinal Diamond Diaries. You may follow her on Twitter here or follow Cardinal Diamond Diaries here.