As you likely know Tom Cheek won the facebook vote to get on the Ford C. Frick ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Cheek received 5,930 of the 15,505 votes cast. Jacques Doucet, the French radio 'voice of the Expos', broadcasting their games for 34 years and Joe Nuxhall, a broadcaster for the Reds for a long time, came second and third in the voting, so their names are also on the ballot.
The other 7 names on the ballot are Jon Miller, Billy Berroa, Skip Caray, Lanny Frattare, Graham McNamee, Herb Score and Dave Van Horne. The vote is for the award is done by the 15 living former Frick winners and 5 other baseball historians. Tom Cheek's problem is that I don't think any of the voters are Canadian so I'm not sure how well they would know Tom. I guess Tony Kubek, who won last year, did TV games for the Jays for a few years so he would know Cheek.
There are a lot of deserving names on the list. Dave Van Horne was the play-by-play guy for the Expos for 33 years, including doing the CBC games that introduced me to baseball. He was very good and I'm sure still is as he does the Florida Marlins games now.
But Tom Cheek is special too, 28 years doing play-by-play for the Jays. 4,306 games in a row, ending only because of his fathers death. He is truly deserving, but so are many of the others on the ballot. Tom was very professional, very very good at his job and clearly loved the game.
I'm hoping they vote him in, but am a realist enough to know it is a long shot. That doesn't change what he means to Jay fans, win or not, he is important to us, and that's what really matters.