When Len Kasper left Cubs TV for White Sox radio, he received a text message from Yankees TV voice Michael Kay.<\/p>\n
\u201cMichael said, They would murder me if I was ever announced as the Mets\u2019 voice,\u201d Kasper said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to imagine anyone having that reaction to Kasper\u2019s move, but it was no less stunning. On Dec. 4, 2020, as if the world wasn\u2019t crazy enough, Kasper ended a 16-year run in the Cubs\u2019 booth \u2013 matching Hall of Famer Harry Caray \u2013 to join the Sox.<\/p>\n
He did the reverse of what Caray did Nov. 16, 1981, when he left Sox TV to join Cubs TV and radio. Caray\u2019s popularity exploded on WGN TV, whose superstation status beamed his broadcasts across the country.<\/p>\n
Kasper had completed the first season \u2013 albeit abbreviated \u2013 on the Cubs-owned Marquee Sports Network. The club had big plans for the regional sports network, and the team still had its 2016 World Series championship core.<\/p>\n
But with an opening in the Sox\u2019 radio booth after Ed Farmer\u2019s death April 1, 2020, Kasper felt it was time to live out a lifelong dream, and the only place he would do it was on the South Side.<\/p>\n
Before the Cubs and Sox meet in the first round of the Crosstown Series this weekend at Rate Field, I asked Kasper about his decision and how it\u2019s working out after five-plus seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is where I belong, doing radio every day,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd being with the White Sox has been immensely fun.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Chicago, I was known as a TV guy. But I was always a radio guy. The experience I got on television was doing baseball. It was just the opportunity that was presented to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fans have to understand that Kasper\u2019s decision, as traitorous as it was to some, had little to do with the Cubs or Sox. It had everything to do with the medium on which they appeared.<\/p>\n
Kasper is a baseball romantic with vivid memories of listening to his role model, Tigers Hall of Fame radio voice Ernie Harwell, growing up in Michigan. Harwell\u2019s style is evident in Kasper\u2019s voice, from the tone to the pace to the words.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why he switched sides of town.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I started to take stock of what I\u2019d already accomplished, what I\u2019d already witnessed with the Cubs and what potentially I could do that I hadn\u2019t done, it kind of became a pretty easy decision,\u201d Kasper said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the only job that was open that I would\u2019ve taken because I didn\u2019t move. When that all aligned and I thought I could actually do the thing I wanted to do when I was 12, it was almost like, why wouldn\u2019t you do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regardless of his motive, Kasper looked like a genius when the Sox won the American League Central in 2021 while the Cubs plummeted and traded away that championship core. As the radio voice, Kasper got to call the Sox\u2019 postseason games, which he couldn\u2019t do with the Cubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was spoiled my first year,\u201d said Kasper, who has meshed perfectly with analyst Darrin Jackson. \u201cBut I also think going through what the White Sox have the last three years has made this season more enjoyable because you can start to really see the light at the end of the tunnel.\u201d<\/p>\n
What the Sox went through were three consecutive 100-plus-loss seasons. For a broadcaster, that\u2019s no way to go through life. But Kasper still had to keep his audience engaged and entertained.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery announcer has a different spin on it,\u201d he said, \u201cbut because I grew up listening to Ernie, the compliment I would pay him is, if the game were 3-2 in the ninth or 12-2 in the fourth, his tone was always the same. And I took that to heart.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told DJ after the \u201924 season [in which the Sox lost a major-league record 121 games], the last six weeks, that\u2019s the best we\u2019ve been together because we had to work at it and we had to really focus on the little things.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sox are competitive again, and the Rate will be jumping this weekend. In August, Kasper will return to Wrigley Field for Round 2 of the series. He\u2019s not persona non grata on the North Side. He still has friends there, and Cubs TV analyst Jim Deshaies is one of his best.<\/p>\n
But Kasper\u2019s allegiance is to the Sox now, and at some point, hopefully many years down the road, he\u2019ll be honored with a picture on the wall in the home team\u2019s radio booth. Last year, Sox senior director of broadcasting Cris Quintana had framed portraits hung of Sox radio broadcasters who held the job for at least three years. Kasper more than qualifies.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, he\u2019ll keep trying to convince conspiracy theorists of his motive for switching sides of town, as fruitless as it might be.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love for people to take me at my word,\u201d he said with a laugh. \u201cI\u2019ve said it a million times. I don\u2019t know how many more I have to say it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Len Kasper left Cubs TV for White Sox radio, he received a text message from Yankees TV…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-643236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}