Hall of Fame Major League Baseball announcer Robert “Gene” Elston passed away on Saturday at the age of 93.

Elston, a native of Fort Dodge who started his broadcast career with KVFD Radio, spent 47 years broadcasting baseball, including 25 with the Houston Astros. He was honored with the Ford C. Frick Award in 2006 by the MLB Hall of Fame.

“I wanted to be a reporter, to let my listeners know what was going on,” Elston told MLB.com at the time of his award presentation. “I was never a homer. I was a fan of the Houston Astros and I wanted them to win, but my job was to report the game.”

In 1941, a 19-year-old Elston got his start at KVFD in Fort Dodge broadcasting high school basketball games. He quickly moved to the National Football League and the Cleveland Rams as a color commentator after entering the U.S. Navy during World War II.

Eight seasons of calling minor league baseball led Elston to the Chicago Cubs in 1954 before he gained a position next to fellow Iowa native Bob Feller calling the Mutual’s Game of the Day through 1960.

A year later, Elston found his calling with the Astros, who had just been created as the Houston Colt .45s. Over the next several 25 years, he became a well-known announcer, calling 11 no-hitters.

Other highlights that went down during Elston’s watch included Nolan Ryan’s 3,509 strikeouts in 1983, which put him first on the all-time list; the 500th career home run for Eddie Mathews; Mike Scott’s N.L. West clinching no-hitter in 1986; the first postseason berth for the Astros in 1980; and the first game inside the Houston Astrodome.

“Gene worked in the era that radio brought the game into our cars and into our homes,” Ryan told the Sugar Land Sun upon hearing of his passing. “As a kid growing up in Texas, my connection to Major League Baseball was through Gene on his radio partners. It was a big part of my life.

“It was a great experience for me to be around Gene when I came to Houston as a player. He had a real passion and commitment to baseball.”

In 1987 after his departure from the Astros, Elston called the CBS Radio “Game of the Week” for eight seasons, and concluded his broadcast career by calling postseason National League Division Series games on CBS Radio from 1995-97.

Upon his presentation of the Ford C. Frick Award, Elston said “This is the best you can get as a broadcaster in the United States. I was very fond of Ford Frick, and I’m pleased to be associated with an award named in his honor.”

Elston was inducted into the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Texas Radio Hall of Fame in 2002, and was a multi-time winner of the Texas Sportscaster of the Year award. He authored three books and the unique “Gene Elston’s Stati-Score Baseball Scorebook.”

Born on March 26, 1922 in Fort Dodge, Elston called the memorable Chicago Cubs-Chicago White Sox exhibition game to christen the new baseball field at Dodger Stadium in April of 1942.

He also made stops in Waterloo with the Three-I League; called Iowa, Northwestern and Houston college football games; and participated in television and radio broadcasts of Southwest Conference basketball and football.

The Fort Dodge baseball program is currently raising money for a McNeil Field renovation project, and the plans include installing a new press box named after Elston.