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.

While most of the attention from Cardinals fans the next six weeks will rightfully be focused on the team’s attempt to catch and pass the Brewers for the NL Central title, another more personal battle will be going on at the same time.

Albert Pujols and Lance Berkman, who have adjoining lockers in the Cardinals’ clubhouse, will be going head-to-head in a competition for the NL’s home run title. Pujols pulled into the lead on Sunday night with his 29^th homer of the year, one more than Berkman and the Dodgers’ Matt Kemp, who hit his 28^th homer on Sunday.

This is the first time in franchise history that the Cardinals have had the top two home run hitters in the league this late into the season. The last time a National League team finished the year with the first and second place home run hitters was 1965, when Willie Mays and Willie McCovey of the Giants accomplished the feat.

Pujols has led the league in home runs the last two seasons, and is trying to become the first Cardinal in history to lead the league in homers for three consecutive seasons. The only two St. Louis players who have won two home run titles in back-to-back seasons were Johnny Mize in 1939 and 1940 and Mark McGwire in 1998 and 1999.

The last hitter to win three consecutive home run crowns in the NL was Mike Schmidt of the Phillies from 1974 to 1976. Schmidt is the only player to complete the hat trick since Ralph Kiner of the Pirates won or tied for seven consecutive home run titles between 1946 and 1952.

With 29 homers on the season and just 41 games to play, Pujols is on a pace for 39 homers. Berkman, who has never led the league in homers in his career, is on pace to finish with 37 homers, meaning this could be the first year since 1992 that the home run title was won with less than 40 homers. Fred McGriff of the Padres led the league that year with 35 home runs. Dante Bichette of Colorado won the 1995 crown with 40 home runs.

This also could well be the sixth consecutive season the league-leading home run total fell from the previous year, starting with Ryan Howard’s total of 58 in 2006, down to 50 for Prince Fielder in 2007, 48 by Howard in 2008 and 47 and 42 from Pujols the last two years.

Berkman also has his sights set on breaking the Cardinals’ franchise record for most home runs by a switch-hitter, 35, set by Ripper Collins in 1934. He also is attempting to become the first outfielder, and non-first baseman, to lead the league since Andruw Jones did it for the Braves in 2005.

The closest the Cardinals have come to having the top two home run hitters in the league was in 1928, when Jim Bottomley and Hack Wilson of the Cubs tied for the title with 31 homers and Chick Hafey finished third with 27.

This year’s race will not just be between Pujols and Berkman, however. After Sunday’s games, six other players were within three homers of the two Cardinals and Kemp, who hit his 28^th homer on Sunday. The group includes Fielder and Dan Uggla of the Braves with 27 homers; Howard of the Phillies, Mike Stanton of the Marlins and Jay Bruce of the Reds, all with 26 homers, and Justin Upton of the Diamondbacks with 25.

Only seven players in Cardinals history have led the league in homers. In addition to Pujols, McGwire, Mize and Bottomley, Joe Medwick tied for the title in 1937, Collins tied for the league lead in 1934 and Rogers Hornsby was the first Cardinal to do it, in 1922 and then again in 1925.

Both Pujols and Berkman also are climbing the ranks in career home run totals. Pujols is now at 437 for his career, one behind Andre Dawson fox 38^th place on the all-time list. He is within 10 of passing Vladimir Guerrero and Chipper Jones, which would place him third among active players behind Alex Rodriguez and Jim Thome. Since the start of the 2001 season, Pujols has hit the same number of homers as Rodriguez for the most in the majors since that time, and Pujols’ total of 118 the last three years leads the major leagues.

Berkman now has 355 home runs and ranks fourth all-time for the most home runs hit by a switch-hitter. He is second among active players in that category, trailing Chipper Jones.

Rooting for both Pujols and Berkman to continue hitting home runs also could figure into the Cardinals’ attempt to chase down the Brewers. Sunday night’s win over Colorado improved the Cardinals’ record when they hit at least one home run to 49-29. They are 16-27 when they fail to hit a homer. Even better, the team’s record is 25-8 when they hit two or more home runs in a game.

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