Nestled in a pocket of northern Chicago, Ill., a shrine to “America’s Pastime,” Wrigley Field, sits in grandeur and welcomes fans to its “Friendly Confines.” In center field, the iconic manual scoreboard is still hand operated to this day, displaying information about games from around the league. On its roof high above the grandstand, a mast where the team flies a flag denoting the result of the day’s game – a “W” for wins and an “L” for losses. Complete with the dulcet tones of the Lowry organ and ode to legendary broadcaster Harry Caray, it is arguably as close to baseball nirvana as it gets.
While the ballpark operates both as a historic landmark and bustling epicenter of Cubs baseball, its adherence to tradition caused it to fall behind. For the first 74 years of the ballpark’s existence, the Cubs only played day games since the stadium did not have lights. Per an ordinance by the city of Chicago, the Cubs can only host up to 43 night games per season, meaning the team plays the largest proportion of home day games in the league.
“For the first couple of years, I thought it was really challenging getting up after a night game at some ridiculous hour just so I could do my prep routine the way I’ve been doing it, and eventually you sort of have to adjust, etc.,” said Jon Sciambi, the play-by-play voice of the team on Marquee Sports Network. “It wasn’t easy. I’m not getting any younger, and you’ve got to make sure you get rest.”
Now in his third year on the job, Sciambi has come to terms with the unusual schedule and is aware of how fortunate he is to call Wrigley Field his office. Reaching this point took a persistence and ardor for the sport with an ability to imbue folklore into the future.
When he was 6 years old, Sciambi remembers asking his grandparents about what a cruise vacation was. After they described the boat and all of the activities, restaurants and amenities on board, Sciambi had only one question for his grandfather – and that was how to receive the baseball box scores. Upon finding out that it was not possible, since this took place before the evolution, let alone commoditization of the internet, he declared that he never wanted to go on a cruise.
Growing up in the New York metropolitan area, Sciambi listened to the rhapsody of Mike and the Mad Dog on WFAN, and remembers it fueling his interest for sports talk radio. Following a one-year stint at The College of William & Mary as a walk-on baseball selection, Sciambi transferred to Boston College. On Monday nights, he would join then-colleagues and future media professionals Bob Wischusen, Christian Megliola and Joe Tessitore for a sports talk show on the campus radio station, where he refined his skills.
“I loved just talking sports [and] engaging with those guys,” Sciambi said. “It was awesome [and] as if we were just preparing for the future, but we all loved it so much.”
When Sciambi graduated from Boston College, he landed a job in sports radio on WESB in Bradford, PA where he worked in a variety of roles, including as a board operator for Pittsburgh Pirates games. From there, he moved south to work as a producer at 560 WQAM in Miami on a morning show with Dave LaMont and Joe Rose. One day at the station, LaMont remarked that Sciambi bore resemblance to former Baltimore Orioles slugger Boog Powell, and he saw the name ‘Boog’ taped on his mailbox. The pseudonym stuck, and is now a part of Sciambi’s identity as a media professional.
“The playbook would be different now,” Sciambi remarked as to how he went about landing a job. “I was calling sports talk radio stations and sending them tapes, and then following up.”
During Sciambi’s formative years in the industry, he lived with Wischusen and slept on his couch. When he and Wischusen’s shifts ended, they would attend sporting events as media members and sit in the press box. Whether it was for the Heat, Dolphins, Panthers or Marlins, the duo would watch the game for free and get a meal, an ideal benefit for young professionals. While Sciambi was at Marlins games, he would find an open broadcast booth and record himself calling parts of the action – and he eventually passed it along to seasoned professionals for advice, including Dave O’Brien.
“I gave him the tape to critique it and we eventually sat down,” Sciambi said. “As he handed the tape back to me on the day he went over what he thought, he said, ‘You know, I thought this was going to really stink, and it didn’t,’ which made me burst out laughing.”
Sciambi eventually succeeded O’Brien as the primary play-by-play announcer. The opportunity came following a year calling the Single-A Boise Hawks and occurred while he was hosting a radio show on 790 The Ticket. Sciambi quickly became a distinctive part of the soundtrack of South Florida sports and was afforded the chance to broadcast both at the local and national level.
“I remember calling playoff games in 2003 when the Marlins won the World Series,” Sciambi said. “You had that knot in your stomach because you wanted your team to win. Then in 2004, I got to call the playoffs nationally for the first time on ESPN Radio and it was such a shift because you could feel all of the stuff but you weren’t emotionally connected to one side or the other.”
Following the 2004 postseason, Sciambi departed the Marlins radio broadcasts and joined presentations of MLB on ESPN where he became further accustomed to national broadcasting. Radio has always been an important aspect of his career, but it was during this time when television opportunities began to come more regularly.
Less than three years later, Sciambi was named the television play-by-play voice of the Atlanta Braves, a time during which he continued hosting his Miami-based radio show. Reflecting back on the three seasons he held the job, it is indicative of an adaptation in his broadcast style and preparation process.
“I like to play, so I think that as I started to really be good with that – and I’m not saying that every person is going to love that; some people are going to want it to be more serious at times – but I trust my guide,” Sciambi said. “In the end, I think, without realizing it if you deconstruct it, all play-by-play guys trust themselves as it relates to content.”
Sciambi is the ESPN Radio play-by-play voice of Sunday Night Baseball and travels around the country to bring listeners the prime-time action. The benefit to doing games nationally, according to Sciambi, is that they often contain teams with chances to win the World Series and usually result in a bonafide battle until the end. Being an aural medium, he knows how fundamental vivid description is to the broadcast.
For a typical Sunday Night Baseball matchup, Sciambi goes from the outside in, evaluating the hitting, pitching and fielding metrics for each team. Additionally, he researches the players and compiles different interesting facts or stories to have for a broadcast.
“I think the biggest thing is that I’m interested,” Sciambi said. “In those spots where I didn’t know those teams the way I would normally know a playoff team, there’s a curiosity there and that sort of fuels the prep.”
Sciambi signed a contract to join Marquee Sports Network before the 2021 season, officially replacing Len Kasper as the television play-by-play voice of the Chicago Cubs. Kasper had been with the Cubs for 16 seasons, but decided to take the radio play-by-play job across town with the rival Chicago White Sox. The exit disconcerted Cubs fans.
“When there’s change, the fans aren’t going to love it. When there’s change and they’re not winning as much, the fans aren’t going to love it,” Sciambi explained. “Len delivered a lot of good news and he’s great, so it’s just a matter of them getting used to me. I would say I was and still am in the space of, ‘Control what you can control.’”
As many regional sports networks continue to lose money and risk ceding media rights deals for several teams due to defaulting on payments, Marquee Sports Network is unique in that it is partially owned by the team. The Chicago Cubs Baseball Club LLC has 50% ownership of the network, with the other 50% held by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the parent company of the embattled Diamond Sports Group. Despite declining revenues over the last several years, the regional sports network still drives ratings – especially when the team is competitive – and includes studio and shoulder programming throughout the rest of the day.
“Even though we are partially owned by the same group that probably half the league is entirely owned by, I would say it feels as though we kind of operate in a separate way,” Sciambi said. “I feel as though they’re open to change [and] to making it good. It’s been pretty great.”
Jim Deshaies provides color commentary during Chicago Cubs games and has been an ideal partner for Sciambi to pair with in his return to calling games regionally. As a former pitcher, largely with the Houston Astros, Deshaies brings an esoteric, yet comprehensible perspective to the broadcast.
Their effective on-air chemistry is essential in keeping select viewers enthralled. The storytelling is enhanced by field reporter Taylor McGregor, who Sciambi says has exponentially learned more about baseball since joining the network from its inception.
“It still nourishes me,” Sciambi said. “I get to use my brain every night, and I’m just genuinely still interested in it. That, in and of itself – I’m so damn lucky that I come about that authentically.”
While Sciambi was growing up on Roosevelt Island in New York City, he became friendly with Tim Sheehy and played baseball through high school. In 2005, Sheehy was diagnosed with ALS. Before he passed away two years later, Sheehy dedicated his time to build Project Main St., a nonprofit organization raising awareness and funds for individuals with the disease.
Now, Sciambi actively serves on the organization’s board of directors and upon landing his new job, informed the Cubs and Marquee Sports Network how he felt about the cause. Both entities have facilitated efforts to assist the nonprofit in communicating and fundraising, especially on Lou Gehrig Day.
“To me, the biggest thing is the platform and making people aware,” Sciambi said. “This is a curable disease – in 2023, it seems fairly ridiculous that we have an incurable disease. [I am] just trying to make more and more people aware of it, and hopefully in 20 years my charity won’t exist.”
With changes in consumption habits and patterns, sports media has been somewhat concatenated towards concise, “snackable” content. Individual leagues are creating in-app experiences tailored towards efficiency and convenience, and advanced statistics are being simplified to engender a deeper understanding of the sport itself.
Major League Baseball instituted a variety of rule changes this season to expedite pace of play and increase offensive output. The intended effects have indeed been realized, with the average game time down by 26 minutes and runs per game up by nearly one-half year over year. A game based on tradition adapted because of ostensible dwindling fan interest did what was necessary to position itself for long-term growth, and fans are taking notice.
“If they started this sport right now in our modern society and the first question was, ‘How many games will you play?,’ the first person that said ‘162 games’ would get laughed out of the room,” Sciambi said. “I don’t know what the number would be – I think somewhere in the 120 to 140 range – but it sure as hell wouldn’t be 162.”
Facilitating the growth of the game to younger demographics has been a collective effort, and one in which Sciambi has had a considerable role. MLB The Show, one of the most popular sports video games on the market, features in-game commentary provided by Sciambi and partner Chris Singleton.
“Seiya Suzuki – his translator in spring training this year taps me and says, ‘He wants you to know he’s been playing MLB The Show too much [and] he had a dream with your voice in it last night,’” Sciambi reminisced. “The player part is cool, but I would say that the kids thing that if in some way I’m getting young people or young kids to stay connected and excited about baseball, I think that’s the best thing.”
Before he makes the full transition back to college basketball when fall turns to winter, Sciambi will have one final baseball assignment this year that he has been eagerly anticipating. ESPN announced that Sciambi will be the national radio voice of the World Series this season, becoming just the fifth play-by-play announcer to execute the role. Previous to this year, he had contributed to radio coverage for the World Series as the on-site studio host, but he has never called one of the matchups. In just a few short months, Sciambi will be able to check a career goal off of his bucket list and perhaps inspire a college student with his eloquence and expertise. In the present moment though, he finds himself in a rare circumstance – at a loss for words.
“It’s cool that I’ve been doing it this long and I still have a little bit of, ‘Wow, that’s really cool,’” Sciambi said. “I try to find myself in those spots that I still have some, ‘Hey, I’m excited,’ and I like that.”
Derek Futterman is a contributing editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, find him on X @derekfutterman.
