In the sports broadcasting industry, if you say “I saw Boog today”, nobody looks at you funny. They know immediately who you are talking about.
Jon “Boog” Sciambi is one of the more recognizable people in the world of play-by-play. He currently serves as the voice of the Chicago Cubs on the Marquee Sports Network. Sciambi is also the voice of Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN Radio. He’ll add World Series duties on ESPN Radio this fall.
Sciambi grew up in Philadelphia as a huge Phillies fan. Strange that he got a job with the Cubs, because it was a Cubs/Phillies game in 1976 that he got his first exposure to the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field. When Sciambi was six years old, he was visiting his grandparents and got to watch the game on TV.
The Cubs took a 12-1 lead after three innings. He wasn’t leaving and in fact predicted the Phillies would come back and win it. He was right, thanks to his favorite player Mike Schmidt hitting four home runs in the game for an 18-16 extra inning win.
As is the case with some of us that get into baseball broadcasting, our first choice would be to play the sport. Sciambi went to Boston College with that intent, but that dream ended when he was cut from the team as a freshman. He started bar tending and dabbling in radio, with a weekly talk show with two of his good friends, who we’ll talk more about in a bit.
ROAD TO MARQUEE/CUBS
On January 4, 2021, Marquee Sports Network named Sciambi as the play-by-play announcer for its Cubs telecasts.
“When you look at the signature franchises in baseball, you’re talking about the Yankees, the Dodgers, the Red Sox, and the Cubs,” Sciambi said at the time in a Marquee Sports Network release. “Chicago has always been one of the special places to go broadcast the game. Baseball matters there.” It was quite a road in getting there.
Sciambi got his first real taste of broadcasting at BC’s 1000-watt FM radio station. He would host a weekly talk show with fellow classmates, Joe Tessitore and Bob Wischusen, both of whom have their success stories in the industry.
In 1996, Sciambi, worked for the Boise Hawks, an Angels’ farm club in a short-season A league. One day, he decided to ask broadcaster Dave O’Brien to review his play-by-play.
“A few days after I gave him the tape, he stares at me for a second, holds up the tape and says ‘When you gave me this tape, I thought it would stink. It didn’t.’” Sciambi told the Sports Broadcast Journal in 2019.
Sciambi’s first break in Major League Baseball was getting into the play-by-play chair for the then Florida Marlins from 1997-2004. While in Miami, he hosted talk shows in the city on 790 The Ticket and WQAM. He left the former in 2008 to focus on his new main job, with the Atlanta Braves.
Boog joined the Braves broadcast team on SportSouth and FSN South in 2007. He was paired with Joe Simpson. Late in the 2009 season Sciambi announced he was leaving the Braves to join ESPN’s Major League Baseball and college basketball coverage full-time. Sciambi is the network as the play-by-play voice for MLB on ESPN Radio, while continuing the same role for college basketball and MLB on ESPN, which he had done since 2005.
At ESPN, Sciambi served as one of the play-by-play voices of Wednesday Night Baseball telecasts for the network beginning with the 2014 season. Sciambi had contributed to ESPN Radio’s World Series coverage as the on-site studio host since 2007 and provided post-game, on-field interviews for SportsCenter. Additionally, he had done play-by-play for both the College and Little League World Series and in 2020, served as a play-by-play commentator for ESPN’s KBO League coverage. It was announced last season, that Sciambi would take over the broadcasts of the World Series on ESPN Radio, starting with this year’s Fall Classic.
Sciambi was also tabbed to replace Matt Vasgersian as the play-by-play voice of MLB: The Show video game series, starting with MLB The Show 22. He’s paired with Chris Singleton who used to be part of the Chicago White Sox’s broadcast.
Sciambi said that he recorded over 200 hours of audio to get in all the player names, types of plays, and other sorts of commentary that might typically be in a game broadcast.
PLAY-BY-PLAY
While Sciambi excels at every sport he does, I think his voice best lends itself to baseball. He’s smooth and polished, but not to the extreme that it sounds forced in any way. Sciambi’s style is all his own. That’s a compliment.
There are many voices out there today that sound the same, like machines, very ‘announcer-y’. Fake effected voices are a dime a dozen, but ones like Sciambi’s are in a class of their own. He doesn’t try to sound like anyone else. In fact, I’ve had multiple conversations with him over the years and the way he talks off air is the way he talks on air.
Sciambi has a booming voice that he controls very well. He’s very conversational in between the action, but rises to the occasion when the play warrants excitement, enthusiasm or disappointment. Then there’s his sense of humor. I love the fact that Sciambi isn’t afraid to poke a little fun at himself. Self-deprecation goes a long way with a viewer, especially if a mistake gets made. Everyone is human, so own it right?
I like how Sciambi is able to simplify some of the more complicated details of the new stats and numbers in the game of baseball. He is able to explain them in terms that even those who don’t follow closely can understand. For example, on a Tuesday night broadcast from Cincinnati, Boog was talking about the importance of Exit Velocity. He started by saying something to the effect of “I know this frustrates some people to hear about how hard a ball is hit. But, last year in the Major Leagues, if you hit the ball 95 miles an hour or above you hit .488, that’s why exit velocity matters.” His broadcast isn’t riddled with analytics, but there’s enough there to keep the interested parties happy without driving those that aren’t away.
I’m a big fan of Sciambi’s work. I’ve known him for a while and he’s as good a person as he is a broadcaster.
DID YOU KNOW?
Sciambi is passionate about raising awareness for and supporting people who live with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS. His friend, Tim Sheehy, died of ALS in 2007. Sciambi is on the board of directors of Project Main St., which works to improve the quality of life for those affected by the disease. The organization, which has raised over $1 million, hosts an annual Tim Sheehy Gala and Softball Classic support their mission.
Remember that I told you, Sciambi’s favorite Phillies player growing up was Mike Schmidt? How about this? The night that the Cubs announced Sciambi had taken the job as their broadcaster, he got a call from an unfamiliar number, and low and behold, it was Schmidt himself.
Sciambi’s nickname, “Boog,” was given to him owing to his physical resemblance to former major league player Boog Powell.
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.
