WGN/9 production director Bob Vorwald will receive the coveted Jerome Holtzman Award for service to local baseball history Jan. 25, at the Pitch and Hit Club’s 69th annual banquet at the Tinley Park Convention Center.
The Chicago Baseball Museum award comes on the heels of Vorwald’s Sunday night Emmy win for his doc, “Wrigley 100: A Century Celebration” that first aired in April.
ReelChicago.com exclusively revealed in June 2013 Vorwald’s initial work in preparing the two-hour “Wrigley 100” show. He ranged nationwide to record more than 60 interviews for a program that was shown at the baseball Hall of Fame’s Film Festival in September.
“Wrigley 100” won the Emmy for Outstanding Achievement for Sports Programs: One-Time Special. The Holtzman Award, named after the longtime Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune baseball writer, will be the cherry on the sundae.
“To be able to talk baseball and Wrigley Field with so many legends of the game, men whose achievements on and off the field have inspired us, was a thrill,” said Vorwald of the documentary.
“I spent 15 months researching, writing, and doing (the) interviews for the show.” “Wrigley 100” was like a labor of love for him.
“Wrigley 100” was the third long-form Ch. 9 show since 1978 that commemorated the station’s legendary baseball broadcast history that may have wrapped up with the 2014 season.
“Baseball is a game on wonderful contradictions and nowhere is that better illustrated than Wrigley Field, a park that is really two separate fields, depending on the wind and weather,” Vorwald said.
“For 100 years, Wrigley Field has been a showcase for all that is good in baseball and I hope it will be for 100 more.”
Vorwald’s doc ‘an emotional love letter’
Dr. David Fletcher, president of the 10-year-old Chicago Baseball Museum, said Vorwald followed in a proud tradition of honorees.
“Bob Vorwald is most deserving of the 2014 Holtzman award, which is presented to person(s) who has made the most significant contribution to the preservation of Chicago baseball history and tradition in honor of Jerome Holtzman, who after his newspaper career was Major League Baseball’s first historian,” Fletcher said.
“Bob’s film is an emotional love letter on a magical place in baseball history,” Fletcher continues. “His documentary highlights all the key moments of joys and sorrows that took place at Wrigley Field and rightly was selected by the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of its select few films shown at their annual film festival this fall.”
A sports producer at Fox/32 prior to his long WGN tenure, Vorwald follows in the wake of an award-winning Comcast SportsNet Chicago trio in snaring the Holtzman honors.
Veteran producers Ryan McGuffey and Sarah Lauch, along with program host David Kaplan, were honored at the 2014 banquet for their 90-minute “5 Outs” documentary on the star-crossed 2003 Cubs.
George Castle is a longtime Chicago author, sportswriter and historian for the Chicago Baseball Museum. Contact him at dgemsnet@aol.com.
