What it All Means 🐻
A broadcaster's dream.
Chicagoland is my home.
I grew up being picked up from school in April and May, and then in August and September and getting in the car to flip on WGN 720 AM to listen to Pat and Ron Santo call Cubs baseball. If you were lucky, you’d turn on the broadcast during a dramatic sequence to hear Ron beg for a play to be made while Pat tries to make the call over his voice. And then Ron’s follow-up “YES!”
The Wrigley Field that I fell in love with first was without either video board in left-center and right. The days when the bullpens were down the left and right field lines, and when you got to the stadium, it was a race to the left field bullpen because Cubs pitchers would sign autographs every day for kids.
I once watched Nomar Garciaparra sign autographs for every single person that wanted one from the end of the end of the left field bullpen plate to the edge of the third base dugout. I prayed to The Lord above that he would get to me as I was at the dugout wall. I remember sandwiching between two older teenagers that were much bigger than me. Trying to hold my 11-year-old arms stretched out as long as I could possibly bring them. I felt the pen and baseball in my hands be taken away. He signed his last one of the day for me.
After the game, until they closed the park for the day, you could hang out in the stadium by the left field gate across from the firehouse and get more autographs from the guys leaving the park. You had the have a keen eye to spot the guys in their street clothes, which was no problem when you had the roster memorized.
After you got kicked out when the park closed, you moved to the fencing behind the player and coach parking lot. There was no full private gate like there is now. If you yelled loud enough, someone might come over to sign. When I was 14, I once watched Rich Harden sign a woman’s boob.
I understand what its like to get your ticket scanned and walk up those steps as a kid; To then be greeted by the greenest grass you’ve ever seen. With an aroma that is indescribable unless you’ve been there your whole life.
Chicagoland is my home.
I cried after they lost to the Marlins in 2003. I cried some more when they got knocked out of the first round in 2007 and 2008. The happy tears came in 2016, my senior year of college.
I showed up with my family continuously through the dark years. I was at the game that Darwin Barney smashed the walk-off homer against the Padres.
Reed Johnson was my favorite player. I had a light blue Reed Johnson shirsey that was worn so often that the amount of loads of laundry that it spun through had that shirt nearly ripped apart. But I wouldn’t throw it away.
I was the only Cubs fan in my grade school classes for multiple years in a row in the South Side Suburbs. I rooted against the Sox in 2005.
My grandfather packed up his life and sailed to the United States on a boat in the 1950s from Italy. Felix Izzi worked arduous and grueling hours in a mill at Republic Steel. He fell in love with the Cubs, taking my grandmother, my mom, and her siblings to watch Ernie Banks and Ron Santo. Felix passed away in 2024. He supported my dream of calling Cubs baseball, to the extent of even in his last days with us, telling his hospice nurses about me and what I do, and that I’m going to broadcast games for the Cubs. The last thing I ever told him while he laid in his final 24 hours was that I would not stop until I get there, for the both of us. I visit his grave to this day repeating the same thing.
It’s not my dream to just broadcast Major League Baseball. It’s to do it for the team that I love. The team that I have spent the entirety of my life giving my heart to.
When I look at that broadcast booth every time I walk in, I get chills. Just hoping, praying, and having the faith in the deepest part of my soul that someday I’m going to get my chance. I have to believe. I have to work. I have to keep believing and working even when doubt creeps in.
I’ve called games within the organization for eight years. I’ve personally worked with the likes of Pete Crow-Armstrong, Daniel Palencia, Matt Shaw, Miguel Amaya, Ethan Roberts, and many, many others in South Bend.
Chicagoland is my home.
I get what this all means. I want to be there. I will be. I’ll do whatever it takes.
