Buck Canel

Under Walter O’Malley’s leadership, the Dodger organization was the first to broadcast games in Spanish beginning in the 1954 season with selected home games on New York’s WHOM Radio. A native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, of Scottish-Spanish descent, Eloy “Buck” Canel was behind the microphone for four seasons of selected games in Spanish from Ebbets Field, including 40 in 1957. Canel began his journalism career as a writer for the Staten Island (NY) Advance. When Associated Press expanded its Latin-American coverage in 1927, Canel spent seven years in Central and South America working for the wire service, before joining Havas, the French wire service. Canel also covered baseball for Agence France Presse. In 1936, he was the Spanish-language broadcaster for the World Series and, in his career, would broadcast 42 World Series to Latin America. Canel was recognized for the Spanish-language version of NBC’s popular program “Gillette Calvacade of Sports.” Known as the pioneer of “Latin American Baseball Broadcasting,” Canel passed away at age 74 in 1980 and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame as winner of the Ford C. Frick Award on July 28, 1985.