Cubs announcer Len Kasper ranks stadiums, uniforms and much more |
Monday, when the Cubs were in between road trips from Milwaukee and St. Louis, Anthony got the chance to talk with Cubs play by play announcer Len Kasper on this week’s edition of the Cubs Corner podcast presented by Coach’s Bar and Grill.
Kasper, in his 15th season, as the Chicago Cubs announcer talked about how he came from Michigan, listening to Ernie Harwell call Detroit Tigers games and becoming inspired to be just like Ernie. The Cubs’ play by play man also made mention of his stints in Milwaukee and Florida before settling for “as long as they’ll have me” on the Northside of Chicago, announcing Cubs games on WGN, FOX, ABC, NBC Sports and next season, Marquee network. Kasper ranked the top 5 (really 7) stadiums to travel to as an announcer outside of the Friendly Confines: Oracle Park (Home of the Giants) Dodger Stadium (Home of the Dodgers) T-Mobile Park (Home of the Mariners) Camden Yards (Home of the Orioles) Minute Maid Park (Home of the Astros) T5. Target Field (Home of the Twins) Fenway Park (Home of the Red Sox) Beyond the brief rankings, Kasper stressed that there is not any stadium he does not enjoy. In terms of uniforms, on the other hand, Kasper often voices the changes he would make to nearly every MLB uniform on Twitter. He was able to rank a top 5 uniforms for us as well. Cubs home Yankees home Red Sox home Dodgers home Tigers home Len has called roughly 2,500 baseball games across nearly 30 parks in his Cubs broadcasting career and probably seen hundreds of different uniform combinations. While his Cubs radio counterpart Pat Hughes is known for his classic, consistent home run calls: “That ball’s got a chaaaaaance, GONE” or “Get out the tape-measure LOOOOONG GONE,” Len is known for a more spontaneous variety of home run calls. In chatting with Len, it became apparent how seriously he takes every moment that he is lucky enough to announce, and in that, he wants to make each moment its own- hence the variety in his long ball call. Kasper made sure to applaud Joe Maddon in the way he has handled the lineups with numerous underachieving players, and gave his predictions for the deadline. As many of us assume, bullpen help was the number one need. Len told me that Derek Holland is already among the funniest in the clubhouse along with Pedro Strop and Anthony Rizzo, to name a few. He also applauded Yu Darvish and Willson Contreras for working hard on their English as well. Beyond these quick questions, Len admitted that he thinks the Cubs will win the division and gave us a key to the Cubs taking home their second World Series championship in four years. To find out the key and listen to the rest of Anthony’s interview with Len Kasper, check out this week’s edition of the Cubs Corner.