Jack Brickhouse, in a remarkable career which has spanned 45 years and over 5,000 Major League baseball broadcasts, has received virtually every honor the broadcasting profession has to give, including the nation's "Best Sports Announcer" award by the American College of Radio Arts and Sciences.

A local product who was educated in the Peoria school system and at Bradley University, Brickhouse went on to great things at WMBD radio in Peoria before being hired by WGN in Chicago in 1940. He first gained prominence in broadcasting the games of Bradley's Famous Five in the late 1930s.

Brickhouse soon became the number one announcer of Chicago Cubs baseball before short stints in the United States Marines and as a broadcaster in New York. In 1947 he returned to Chicago where he broadcasted White Sox games from 1948 to 1967 and Cub games from 1948 through this past season -- in all, more than 5,000 broadcasts. And in the process he became Vice President and Manager of Sports at WGN, the leading independent station in America.

That number alone puts Brickhouse above most other broadcasters in America, but dedication and professionalism will be the reasons he will rank as one of the best in the history of athletics. Jack will always be remembered as a man who took pride in his roots and never forgot that Peoria and Bradley University gave him the start to a career which earned for him the respect of millions of sports fans.