Jon Sciambi has been the voice of the Chicago Cubs since the Marquee Sports Network was formed in 2021. The current voice of Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN Radio has many analysts working with him on Cubs games, including Jim DeShaies, Joe Girardi, Doug Glanville, or Ryan Dempster to name a few.
Sciambi was a guest on the Tell Me A Story I Don’t Know podcast with George Ofman and he said that working at ESPN prepared him for the aspect of the Cubs.
“At ESPN, when you are doing national games on the radio, I had one year with Dave Campbell, then I was with Chris Singleton forever, now I’m with Doug Glanville. There are other fill-ins here and there. On TV over the years between MLB and college baseball, I worked with Rick Sutcliffe, David Ross, Aaron Boone, Singleton, Glanville, Alex Cora, Kyle Peterson, Raul Ibanez, a non-stop list. I would say I had good training in it. It’s a little challenging when you are bouncing from one to the other.”
Due to Sciambi forming relationships in the past with some of his current analysts, it makes it easier to have the analyst chair shuffle around sometimes.
“The one thing that I would tell you I am fortunate about in terms of all those dudes is I worked 7 years at ESPN with Sutcliffe. I’ve known Ryan Dempster since 1998. We’ve been friends and stay connected. Doug Glanville is a guy I have been friends with since he’s played. I’ve always had a good connection with Girardi and JD (Deshaies) is one of my favorite people on the planet. I’m not saying there is no factor because that would be untrue, but I am fortunate that I have a specific connection for the most part with each of those guys that I think facilitates it at least a bit.”
The Cubs’ TV job became available when Len Kasper became the radio voice for the Chicago White Sox. It was an opening Sciambi had known about, but it wasn’t on his immediate radar b.
“I was probably more concentrated on how Len was. Is Len happy? That was really more my focus. I had a full-time job at ESPN so that was really more what I was concentrating on.”
Part of the benefits of being the voice of the Cubs is getting the chance to have the home stadium be an iconic ballpark like Wrigley Field. Sciambi said that he had called many games at Wrigley Field before this role, but the ballpark has a charm to it.
“I love that I can sit in that seat. I had done over 100 games at Wrigley Field before I even got the job and now 2+ years into it, there’s still plenty of nights when I sit there whether it’s full or empty and it feels completely brand new because it’s so beautiful and so special.”
