It's about time!
Twenty years after being awarded the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Dodgers finally decide to honor Jaime Jarrín with a special pregame ceremony, slated for September 21st, that will rightfully place the Spanish language broadcaster among the "Ring of Honor" at Dodger Stadium. Per a Dodger press release:
Jarrín will join Pee Wee Reese, Tommy Lasorda, Duke Snider, Jim Gilliam, Don Sutton, Walter Alston, Sandy Koufax, Roy Campanella, Jackie Robinson, Don Drysdale and Vin Scully in having their name/number permanently affixed to Dodger Stadium.
Said Jarrín, “The Ring of Honor is something that I never dreamed about, and I’d like to thank the Dodgers from the bottom of my heart. To me, this honor is equal to being inducted into the Hall of Fame, and I’m humbled to be up there with Vin Scully and all the other Dodger greats. It’s going to be a special night.”
“On behalf of the Dodgers and Dodger fans, it’s my honor to congratulate Jaime on reaching this milestone and thank him for serving as a great representative of our team and the game of baseball for 60 years,” said Dodger President and CEO Stan Kasten. “His place among the franchise greats is undisputed, and we’re proud to welcome him into the team’s Ring of Honor.”
“Congratulations to Jaime, my friend and mentor, on this great honor and 60 years with the Dodgers,” said legendary Dodger pitcher and broadcaster Fernando Valenzuela. “I’ll always remember your kindness and wisdom in helping a teenager acclimate to the Majors and then, many years later, showing me the ropes as a rookie broadcaster. You are the true definition of what it means to be a Dodger.”Jarrin's career with the club spans 60 years -- starting in 1959. Per Micheal Green at We're History:
Just as Scully started out as a novice under a more senior broadcaster before moving up to be the lead announcer, Jarrín was the #2 man in the booth until 1973. Since then, he has broadcast six or seven innings a game on radio and become, as The Los Angeles Times put it, “the Voice of Dodger Béisbol.”
One reporter drew a comparison between Scully as “the friendly and knowledgeable neighbor who asks his listeners to ‘pull up a chair,” and Jarrín as “professorial.” But the two broadcasters actually have taken the same approach. As Jarrín put it, “I knew my job was to give them some type of entertainment, knowing that Latinos are very hard-working people. They work from early in the day until late at night, so after a hard day, they come home and what better entertainment to give them than the beautiful game of baseball, in their own language?”
Jarrín was a pioneer for other Spanish language announcers and for southern California Latinos, and he understood his role. “Here, the Americans, they start with baseball in the schools. But we have an audience that comes from all over Latin America. And they came from Latin America without knowing baseball…. Now they really follow baseball. I think they learn it through us, through our broadcasts.”Other honors that have been bestowed on Jaime Jarrín include:
- Golden Mike Award in 1971
- La Gran Cruz al Merito en El Grado de Comendador (the highest civilian medal) from his native Ecuador in 1992
- Southern California Broadcaster Association's President's Award in 1998
- Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998
- Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1998
- Inducted into the California Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame in 2003
- Inducted into the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum in 2003
- Inducted into the Southern California Sports Broadcaster's Hall of Fame in 2003
- Foreign Language Sports Broadcaster Award from the Southern California Sports Broadcasters in 2003
- AFTRA Foundation's AFTRA Media and Entertainment Excellence Award in 2011
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