The Cubs’ biggest free-agent signing makes his debut Tuesday afternoon on Marquee Sports Network.
No, Jon “Boog” Sciambi won’t be making the same kind of money as new left fielder Joc Pederson, but he’s arguably more important to the long-term picture as the new voice of the Cubs.
“I’m fired up,” Sciambi said Sunday from Cubs camp in Mesa, Ariz.
Like Supreme Court justices, being the play-by-play man for the Cubs usually is a lifetime gig.
Jack Brickhouse carried the load from the 1940s to 1981. Harry Caray stole the handoff to Milo Hamilton and helped make the Cubs a national phenomenon on cable until his death in 1998. Chip Caray took over from his grandfather during the reign of Sammy Sosa but flew the coop after he and Steve Stone battled with players and management throughout the tumultuous 2004 season.
And popular Len Kasper seemingly was on his way to a decadeslong stint until shockingly leaving in December to reunite with his first love, radio, for the Chicago White Sox.
Sciambi, who goes by the nickname “Boog” because of his resemblance to former major-leaguer Boog Powell, makes his debut Tuesday at Sloan Park for the Cubs-Royals exhibition game.
He began his baseball career with the Florida Marlins in 1997 and also called Atlanta Braves games before joining ESPN. After Tuesday’s spring training home opener and Friday’s broadcast, he’ll head back to Chicago and call some games remotely, including on March 8 and 9. The Cubs plan to televise all of their home games this spring, but Sciambi’s schedule isn’t finalized and he will continue calling college basketball games on ESPN.
“It’s a special job,” he said. “I think you have different sets of Cubs fans — people who grew up in the greater Chicago area that are connected to it, but then you also have the people that didn’t have local access to baseball that got a chance to watch this team in markets and the fact it was on during the day. So it’s a unique thing that resonated.”
ESPN has given Sciambi some space from his college basketball duties to acclimate himself to the new gig.
“They were nice enough to kind of let me navigate out of some hoops just so I could get a little bit of time,” he said. “I just want to be around. I know a lot of the guys, but I don’t really know Trevor Williams. I want them to get used to the fact I’m around and who I am. I don’t know if initially I’m going to see a ton of them, but I just wanted to get out here.”
Like opening a Broadway show with no dress rehearsal, Sciambi will be thrown into the new Marquee gig with no safety net under him, thanks to COVID-19 protocols.
Sciambi called all his ESPN TV games last summer from studios in Bristol, Conn., and all his radio broadcasts either from Bristol or his home in New York. After being away from ballparks in 2020, being inside Sloan Park this week was a much-anticipated respite.
“Just sitting there watching them hit fungos and throwing to bases, I was like, ‘Yeah, I figure I can just watch this all day,’ ” he said. “I just needed it. I was so disconnected.”
I suggested Marquee institute a Fungo Cam in spring training and let fans back home tune in to watch all day.
“It would be like the yule log,” he said. “Just sit there watching a channel of guys hitting fungos on repeat.”
Sounds like a plan then?
“I’m in,” he said.
Get to work, Crane Kenney.
Sciambi is well aware of the legends he’s following in the Cubs booth. He never met Harry Caray, though he did have an anecdote about running into Caray in the tiny Wrigley Field press box bathroom on a frigid day in April 1997, when Caray apparently had a difficult time getting through his layers of clothing to do his business.
“It was like fate,” Sciambi said with a laugh. “If I handed that to (‘Saturday Night Live’ producer) Lorne Michaels and said, ‘This is what you should have Will Ferrell do,’ he’d be like, ‘That’s pretty good.’ “
Sciambi is good friends with Kasper and they’ve spoken a few times about the Cubs TV job and what it entails. Though Sciambi has called thousands of sporting events for 24 years and knows the game as much as any announcer in the business, the Cubs obviously are a different animal than, say, the Marlins.
“Look, I’ve done 100-plus home games at Wrigley, but never as the ‘home’ guy,” he said. “I want to connect with Cubs fans without being fake, and my antenna is up for the stuff I don’t know.
“I’m not going to try and fake my way into making it sound like I know all the stuff, and if I think I’m only sort of sure about something, I won’t do it.”
Sciambi hasn’t had a chance to learn the ins and outs of Chicago culture, so I sent him an abbreviated list of the must-follows on Twitter to get him acclimated, including Chicago Party Aunt, The Wieners Circle, Billy Goat Tavern, Nisei Lounge and Lin Brehmer.
Feel free to tweet him the rest of the Twitter accounts only Chicagoans truly understand. It shouldn’t take long before he’s calling dibs on his parking space.
Like Kasper, Jason Benetti and many other broadcasters of their generation, Sciambi likes to get to the clubhouse before games and converse with players, coaches and the manager to gather information he may use during the broadcast, whether it’s newsy stuff or just fodder for a funny story.
In his first year with the Marlins, he soaked it in like a sponge.
“You had (manager) Jim Leyland, Alex Fernandez, Gary Sheffield, Kevin Brown, Bobby Bonilla …” he said. “You just went in the clubhouse and kept your mouth shut. You just listened.”
That won’t be happening with the Cubs until COVID-19 restrictions ease and the clubhouse opens to media, so he’s hoping to use these few days in camp to connect to the team and get comfortable in his surroundings before the regular season begins April 1. One thing he’s not at all concerned about is the chemistry between him and longtime analyst Jim Deshaies, who’s so laid-back he could bond with a cactus.
“I have a really good idea of what his sensibility is, and I enjoy him,” Sciambi said. “That’s one of those things that, as a feel, I have a pretty good idea that will be smooth. He’s smart, he’s curious, he likes to laugh and doesn’t take himself too seriously. And he loves baseball. That’s my kind of guy.”
The first day of school has arrived, and Sciambi is ready to greet Cubs fans.
It could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
