COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. -- The love affair that ESPN's Tim Kurkjian has enjoyed for decades with the sport of baseball -- and everyone associated with it -- reached its pinnacle on Saturday when he was honored in Cooperstown, New York as this year's recipient of the BBWAA Career Excellence Award.
"This is the greatest honor of my professional life," Kurkjian told ESPN's Outside the Lines. "There is not a close second. And I wake every day saying what Cal Ripken said after breaking Lou Gehrig's record: 'It can't be happening to me.'"
In accepting the award, which is presented annually to a sportswriter "for meritorious contributions to baseball writing," Kurkjian takes his place alongside the list of heroes, mentors and friends who have been previously honored.