time since 1946, Kubek said, "I can't believe it!" The final broadcast for Kubek and Costas as a team was Game 5 of the 1989 American League Championship Series (October 8), also at SkyDome, where the Oakland Athletics won to advance to the World Series. MSG Network and retirement When NBC lost its baseball TV rights to CBS after the 1989 season, Kubek left the national scene, joining the Yankees' local cable-TV announcing team (which earned Kubek US$525,000 a year). Kubek spent five years calling games for the Yankees (1990–1994) on the MSG Network with Dewayne Staats, where he earned fans and critics' respect for his honesty. After 1994, Kubek effectively quit broadcasting. He explained his sudden retirement from sportscasting by saying: Kubek added, "I want to go home and spend more time with my family. They deserve it more than anyone. I don't need that ego stuff. I feel sorry for those who do." Kubek's resignation coincided with the bitter strike that wound up cancelling the World Series in 1994. In a 2008 New York Times article, Kubek claimed not to have seen a major league game since his retirement from broadcasting. Kubek lives in Appleton, Wisconsin, and is a supporter of the Fox Valley Lutheran High School and its baseball team. The National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame on June 20, 2019, named its inaugural Excellence in Media Award the Tony Kubek Award and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN was honored. Ford C. Frick Award On December 22, 2008, Tony Kubek was named the recipient of the 2009 Ford C. Frick Award, an honor bestowed on broadcasters by the Baseball Hall of Fame. Kubek was selected for the honor by a committee of 15 prior Frick Award winners and five broadcast historians and columnists. He became the first Frick Award winner whose broadcast career was solely in television, and the first to have called games for a Canadian team, the Toronto Blue Jays, from 1977 to 1989. In that regard he was named to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, in St. Marys, Ontario, in the Class of 2016. Politics Kubek is a Democrat. In 1976, he declined to go to South Carolina to campaign for former teammate Bobby Richardson, a Republican, who lost a close race for the U.S. House of Representatives to incumbent Democrat Kenneth Holland by a 51% to 48% margin. See also List of Major