With the Minnesota Twins on the verge of clinching a playoff spot a lot of the eyes of baseball are on this team. It has hit the most home runs in the league (as of September 18, 2019) and features a Major League record 5 players with 30 or more homers. Calling it all is Cory Provus on Twins Radio. Provus is with his third big league club and now in his 7th season of play-by-play in Minneapolis. I’ve known Cory for a long time and caught up with him this week at Target Field.
Andy Masur: I know this is something that you’ve wanted to do all your life, tell us about the path you took to get started.
Cory Provus: My path started when I was about 7 or 8, and my cousin is Brad Sham he’s been the voice of the Dallas Cowboys forever. My mom is the youngest of 4, so my mom was already Brad’s aunt when she was about 7. So, when i was old enough to realize what he did for a living that you can make a career even if you’re not good enough to play a sport that you could still make a career talking about it, I thought that sounded pretty cool. So that was the first path just following him.
I was like every kid that wanted to get into this field. Growing up in Chicago you turn the TV down on Sunday’s and put the Bears game on, clip the rosters from the Tribune or Sun-Times, you’d start broadcasting into the tv. I really knew what I wanted to do when i was a kid and I set a goal for myself to do it.
I got a break in High School working on a tv show, then on Sports Channel Chicago called School Yard Jam, which was a monthly news magazine on high school athletes I was a reporter on that show and that gave me a tape. It got me a gig at WAER at Syracuse radio my freshman year in college. From there I was lucky enough to catch a break here and there and I went small. Out of school I lived in Virginia, then North Carolina and then Alabama. I was really taking any gig I could get when I was younger.
AM: Then a big break getting a job with the Cubs (full disclosure Cory followed me in the job at WGN Radio), had to be a dream come true for a Chicago kid.
CP: So, going back to when I graduated from college, I graduated in 2000 and I had this job in Blacksburg, Virginia. I didn’t know anybody at WGN Radio (then the flagship home of the Cubs) but I had a cassette tape, literally a cassette tape of my work. I contacted Dave Kaplan and Dave Eanet and said here, I’m a Chicagoland kid, not looking for a job I just recently graduated from college and I just want you to hear my work. They were kind enough to meet with me and show me around the studios. Then my path began professionally in Virginia, but twice a year I would send Dave Eanet an email, saying here’s what I’m doing, if anything comes open please keep me in mind.
Then a little birdie told me in 2006 that you were in the running for a job with the San Diego Padres. But I knew you were finishing up your work with the Bears, I believe that year coincided with the Bears Super Bowl, so that extended the dialogue because it wasn’t exactly a definite, but meanwhile I was in the mid to end of my season with the UAB basketball team in Birmingham. Then I found out that you got the job in San Diego, and I had the tape out the next day. Like everything in my mind was ready to go. I just needed you to get the job in San Diego to start the process. The fact that Dave Eanet knew where I was and what I was doing, to this day I’m so grateful that I maintained that relationship when I graduated from college.
AM: From the Cubs you went on to Milwaukee and then to the Twins…along the way you were around some pretty good teams. What was that like to be on the mic when these games meant so much?
CP: In 2007 my first year with the Cubs, that was a playoff team. I was 28 years old when I got that job and turned 29 during the season and here I was celebrating a playoff berth in Cincinnati. Being in that clubhouse in my first year covering a Major League team, I thought it was Disneyland. I’m there with Ron (Santo) going back and forth on the air, but them I’m talking to Will Ohman, a reliever at the time, and he asked me “can I pour a beer on you?” I just won the lottery.
I remember the next day I was talking with a host on WGN kind of reflecting back on the night before and I’ll never forget this, that night in Cincinnati after they clinched, I just sat in my hotel room, just sat at the desk chair, no music, no TV, minimal light and I just looked out the window and tried to reflect in my mind what just happened. It was such a career thrill that I got to experience that with my favorite team growing up to be a part of that, to cover that was incredible.
Now in 2008 they were even better, they won 97 games they thought they were going to have a lengthy playoff run but were swept in 3 by the Dodgers. Then 2011 with Uecker was special because in 2010 he had a rough year physically, he had two open heart procedures in 2010 and he missed a chunk of the season, but to see him back healthy in 2011 and really get behind a really good team that was two wins away from the pennant, that was amazing.
Then with the Twins, they had a bad run. Starting in 2012, my first year they were losing 90 some odd games a year. They had that one brief run in 2017 where they won the Wildcard and went to the wildcard game, they got bounced by the Yankees but they had that one moment of summer where it was ok, they captivated the fan base somewhat. That came late too, because they didn’t get hot until August, where in 2019 this team has been a force from the opening weeks of the season. So this is my first time being here living in Minneapolis in the Twin Cities where the fans are really behind the Twins even more so than the Vikings who have a pretty big footprint in the city. I had no idea how much they swallowed up attention in this town until I moved here but this is the first time that the Twins have been good and good enough from the opening weeks until now into September where they have the attention of the market.
AM: Do you feel a big sense of responsibility being the voice of this team and having fans hang on your every word as the Twins march to the Playoffs?
CP: I don’t, if I did I’d probably panic, I don’t. They show me some numbers once in a while to show me how many people are listening and its incredible I’m just amazed at the outreach and I’m so honored by the amount of people that listen. I was so lucky that I learned from guys that were just like “don’t take yourself too seriously”, have a good sense of humor about it. If I didn’t learn from (Pat) Hughes, if I didn’t learn from (Len) Kasper or Uecker or Brian Anderson and all these guys that I was so fortunate enough to learn from, it would probably feel differently, I’d probably be stiff about it, take myself so seriously that I’d be like a character out of the Simpsons, and just that stoic, can’t have a sense of humor, you have to put on a fake voice, its not me. I just want to have fun.
The guy I work with everyday is a big part of that too. Danny (Gladden) is a perfect blend for how I was raised in this game, because he’s all about self-deprecating humor and some levity with all this and that’s how I operate too.
AM: You’ve had a chance to work with some legends, Ron Santo, Bob Uecker have those experiences helped you along the way to this job with the Twins?
CP: Well the Uecker part of it, working with Bob I was kind of prepared for it because of Santo, he was such an icon. He was so special and meant the world to you and meant the world to me and so many and we miss him dearly. We miss him every day. I’m sure it’s like you, when I come to the ballpark I think of a memory every second about something that he would find interesting about a game or a city or something about a conversation and so I think about him often. Because I had that experience being around Ronnie where you’re pulling up to a hotel and there’s Derrick Lee and Carlos Zambrano, Kerry Wood and Alfonso Soriano, Santo is the star.
I mean Santo is the star and then comparably in Milwaukee, there’s Braun and Fielder and Weeks and Hart, nah Uecker. We want Uecker. So to be around Bob, it was incredible but I had experience being around that kind of iconic figure in the two years that I got to travel and learn and laugh and be around Ron.
Andy Masur is a columnist for BSM and works for WGN Radio as an anchor and play-by-play announcer. He also teaches broadcasting at the Illinois Media School. During his career he has called games for the Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres and Chicago White Sox. He can be found on Twitter @Andy_Masur1 or you can reach him by email at Andy@Andy-Masur.com.
