Ron Coomer (Transcript)

Robby Incmikoski: All right, Coom, we're recording now my brother. Hey, let me ask you a question. You've been in baseball a long time. You're a Major League All-Star. You've had what a lot of people refer to as a baseball life. Being a broadcaster now, after a great playing career for yourself, now you get to call Wrigley Field your office for 81 games a year. How do you describe that experience, Coom, sitting in a booth at Wrigley Field every day and that is how you make your living?

Ron Coomer: I would say, kind of surreal actually. Robbie, I think when we grew up in a city with sports, and you are like a little kid with your hat on and your glove, and you're going to your grandparents' house, and you're not going to leave without your glove or ball—that was me with my hat on, my Cubs hat, and you flop in front of the TV to watch the Cubs and Jack Brickhouse broadcast on WGN when you're a little guy. That was the best babysitter my mom could ever have had.

That's something that I've always wanted to do. It goes back to those feelings of being a little kid and then rolling forward to being an adult, playing baseball and getting out of college and having this ambition of being a baseball player. When you're a kid, you don't know you can play. When you're a little guy, you're just a good Little League player. But as you get older, you realize.

When my career ended, I did 10 years of broadcasting with the Minnesota Twins, and loved it, and that's where you and I met. But there was something about getting a phone call in the middle of my radio show in Minneapolis that said there was an opportunity to be one of the voices of the Chicago Cubs. I just remember I got that call from Pat Hughes, who's now in the Hall of Fame, was my partner for the last 12 years. And I was like, "Oh my God, this is like going back to being four again." This is exactly what you wanted to do at four years old—you would talk over Jack Brickhouse.

So it's kind of surreal that the circle of my baseball life has just come full circle, and now I'm doing something I always wish I could have done as a little kid.

Robby Incmikoski: When you were a kid growing up, you grew up in the Chicago area, I assume a Cubs fan, correct?

Ron Coomer: In the city, in the inner city.

Robby Incmikoski: So who are your favorite Cubs players growing up? Who did you imitate when you were a kid?

Ron Coomer: I think the first team I remember was like '71 or '72 Cubs, and that was Billy Williams and Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, and Don Kessinger was another guy that I really liked. He was their shortstop. And then the next group that came in right after that was Rick Monday, who's now a broadcaster for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Mo and I have been friends for a long, long time, but it was him and Jose Cardenal who were my two favorites with the Cubs when I was a little guy. I knew what they hit, where they hit in the batting order—you're just a little kid watching the games.

Then probably Dave Kingman, the big home run guy that I loved watching as a little kid.

Robby Incmikoski: When you played at Wrigley for the first time, was it as a member of the Cubs? Was that the first time you ever played at Wrigley, Coom?

Ron Coomer: No, it was as a member of the Minnesota Twins in '97 in interleague play.

Robby Incmikoski: What was that experience like for you the first time you stepped into the batter's box at Wrigley Field?

Ron Coomer: I will tell you from the start of the day—when I would play in Chicago, I would always stay with my mom and my family out in the southwest suburbs. So I remember driving to Wrigley way before we were supposed to be there.

Robbie, I'm walking on the field from the left field corner, where that main gate is, and I walked through the stands and down through the gate and right onto the field. This is before anybody's even close to being on the field, even the grounds crew is not really out there.

I just needed to go there and walk around the ballpark and get the fan out of my system. I'd already been in the league three years, but I had to get that fan kid out of my system before I could play a ball game, because it was just overwhelming. I remember sitting in seats along the left field foul line by the bullpen back then, where my dad and I would sit and watch a game where his company's seats were—we'd get them twice a year. I had to do all those things before I could put my uniform on and think I could play in a game.

Robby Incmikoski: When you look in your baseball life, where does that stick out, just in terms of life memories, Coom? For a baseball kid growing up, where does that stand out for you in your life? Not just baseball.

Ron Coomer: In my life, it's one of my all-time memories. I'll never forget it. It's something that when people ask you, "Well, do you really like what you do?"—you can go back to some of these stories and tell them it's the only thing I've ever wanted to do. I don't know how else to describe it.

I'll tell you this—I remember in that series, I hit a home run on Waveland Avenue. I think it was the third game of the series. I hit a home run onto Waveland, and I remember coming around first base thinking, "I could retire now. I'm good. This is the only thing I've ever wanted to do in baseball, period." I did what I wanted to do, and I remember hitting the home run and going, "That's really cool."

Robby Incmikoski: Kyle Fager, what do you got, man? You got anything for Coom? I'm gonna keep going, but jump in, Kyle Fager.

Kyle Fager: I'm wondering if we could compare the feeling of the first time that you suited up for the Cubs and the first time you went on the air with Pat. You mentioned Santo as being among your first memories as a fan. Filling those shoes must have been a surreal experience. I'm wondering if you could compare your first day as a player with the Cubs and your first day of broadcasting.

Ron Coomer: My first day—I remember the day that I got to spring training, and I got there also really early before all the players got there. I'm a veteran player, I'm 34 years old, but that first day I'm there with a cup of coffee, as I'm walking through the clubhouse, is Ryne Sandberg. And I'm like, "Yeah, this is perfect." And he's very inviting and very nice. And I just thought, "Wow, this is what I wanted it to be like."

And then opening day, being introduced on the field in a Cubs uniform—you look around and you go, "This is the stuff you dreamed about as a little kid coming to fruition," and you're just like, "Wow."

I remember having that very same feeling when I sat down in the booth to prep for the ball game, for our very first game at Wrigley Field. It's pouring outside. It's opening day, and we're not sure we're going to play, and it's just a miserable day, but it was shining and it was 80 degrees to me. I had done a couple games with Pat in spring training, but we were kind of only a couple in, and then it's, "Okay, here we go."

I just thought, once again, this whole sports thing—it's hard to explain, because baseball is what I wanted to do. And I'm sitting next to what's going to be a Hall of Fame broadcaster, and I'm sitting in the chair of a guy that I watched as a little kid who was a Hall of Fame player.

But to answer the second part of your question, I never felt like I was replacing Ron Santo, ever. I knew Ron when I was playing with the Cubs as a friend. I remember the first series, we went to Cincinnati to open up the season on the road, and he came to the back of the plane. He called everybody "big boy"—"Hey, big boy, we're going to dinner tonight over here on the hill. I got a buddy's restaurant. We're all going, and you're coming with."

He comes up to me, only me. And now the whole back of the plane is veteran players. And he goes, "Hey, people are going to dinner tonight. We're in Cincinnati. My buddy owns a place." We had just talked about having a team meal together, the whole group of us in the back of the plane. And now he comes back and he turns around and he starts walking back to the front of the plane.

I remember Eric Young and some of those guys are like, "What do you mean you're going?" I go, "Here's the deal. I'm going to dinner with Santo. If any of you guys want to walk up there and tell Santo I'm not going with him, you go right ahead. I'll do whatever he says, but good luck with that." And we all started laughing like, "I guess you go with Santo," because no one was jumping up to go tell Ronnie that I wasn't going to go to dinner with him. And then I met those guys, but it cost me a lot because everything was on me—the rest of the night, the drinks. It was good, though.

Robby Incmikoski: Do you ever sit back, Coom—I don't know if this is something—when you talk to players about their career, they say, "You know what, when I'm done playing, I'll reflect on all this." Do you ever reflect on how crazy your life has been being a Chicago kid, you play in the big leagues, you make an All-Star team, you play for the Cubs, and now you're Pat Hughes's broadcast partner and the guy who replaced Ron Santo? I know nobody "replaces" Ron, we get that, with full due respect to Ron Santo, but my point is: Do you ever look and say, "Man, what a crazy life I have lived," and how lucky you are to be as important a member as you are in Cubs lore?

Ron Coomer: No, I would say no. Every now and then some of that will creep in because of something that happens, whether it's my mom saying something, or a fan—as you know, Robbie, around the ballpark, some of our die-hard fans, no matter what city you're in, will come up to you and they give you a story about how important your broadcast is to their family or to a family member, or the memories of the World Series or something like that—and then that creeps in.

But I've always been a person that, in my business world and personal life, you've got to move forward. You want to do the next day's job as good as the last day, so I don't look back too much. But there are definitely times when you reflect on some of the things, or experiences like going to a Bruce Springsteen concert with your teammates or meeting the President, or doing things that growing up on the south side of Chicago in the inner city, if you said you were going to be hanging around with rock and roll stars, people would be like, "Yeah, right."

So the experiences every now and then kind of slap you upside the head and go, "Yeah, that's real. It is definitely real."

Robby Incmikoski: Let me ask you about the playability of Wrigley, Coom. Your experience as a player and as a broadcaster, does Wrigley play different day games versus night games? Since there are so many day games played there.

Ron Coomer: It does. It does for the player. I think the Cubs schedule is an underrated thing in how a team does. I just believe that, because the Cubs never get into a real good routine. You play all weekend games during the day, and all the early week games are at night, so the day and night routine never really gets to sink in like it does with other teams.

But I do believe that at 1:20 in the afternoon, when there's 40,000 people and you jog out to your position—all that stuff that we just talked about goes away and you're playing, and there's an energy about Wrigley. Only a few ballparks have anything close to that. There is an energy to Wrigley, and I still feel it as a broadcaster, and I did as a player. It's just one of the coolest things ever.

Kyle Fager: As somebody who grew up in the city, grew up a fan, and you've been around the team in so many different capacities, I wonder if you could tell me what Wrigley means to the city, what it means to the fan base, and what makes it so special.

Ron Coomer: Great question. I would say the way you know Wrigley Field means a lot to the city of Chicago is by the number of tourists that come by every single day, team playing at home or not. You see them out in front of the marquee taking pictures and standing out in front of Wrigley and just having a sandwich or a cup of coffee and just taking it in.

There's a few ballparks that might get some of that. I remember Yankee Stadium being that way. Fenway is that way. But you look at Wrigley and the number of people that do the tours every day that I see regularly—it's crazy. It is definitely a tourist destination. When you come to Chicago, you see Wrigley Field, and if you're a sports fan, you get a tour of it—summer or winter.

I think when you go into Wrigley Field, if you're a baseball fan, you instantly fall in love with Wrigley Field because of the intimacy that the ballpark has. And if you're not a sports fan, and you're there for a game, you look around and you go, "Well, there's something to this," because there's an energy, like a concert or something, and a visual way of looking at it too, with green grass and ivy, and you're looking out over the city, and you see downtown and buildings, and you're in this cathedral of sport. It's got its own energy, its own look, and you can't help but fall in love with it if you're there.

Kyle Fager: I think the Cubs fans at the park—they're obviously very knowledgeable. They're very passionate. They get loud. I'm wondering if you have a personal favorite memory that sort of makes you think, "This is what makes Wrigley different." Like a moment on the field and the crowd exploded.

Ron Coomer: I think one of my favorite moments came as a—well, I have two really. When I hit my first home run as a Cub, I'll never forget it lands out on the street, and I'm thinking, "Wow," and you're looking as the cheers go up in the bleachers as you're watching the ball sail out of the ballpark. That was a personal moment.

And then I think calling the home run, the grand slam of Miguel Montero against the Dodgers in the playoffs—I've never heard the ballpark louder. He hits that pitch, he hits a grand slam, and I remember saying on the broadcast right after Pat called the home run, that Wrigley Field is shaking. And I was really being literal—the upper deck was shaking. And I thought, "You know, our ballpark's 100 years old. I'm like, stay together now. We're finally getting somewhere here. We can't have an issue now."

I mean, this isn't the time. But I thought, "Wow, the ballpark was literally shaking," and I could hardly hear Pat—I know, because of knowing him, he probably couldn't hear me. And I just thought, "This is the coolest gig you could possibly have. Period." It really was.

Robby Incmikoski: When you look at the guests too, you almost look at like when you go to Dodger Stadium, you expect celebrities, but you get a lot of people that come to Wrigley Field for the experience—musicians, actors, a lot of famous Cubs fans out there. What is that aspect of the job like?

Ron Coomer: It's entertaining. It's fun to meet people that share a common interest in the team. Eddie Vedder comes to mind right away. Eddie's a huge Cubs fan, comes to our games, and he's wearing the hard catcher's helmet. Here's one of the biggest names in rock and roll, one of the best singers in rock and roll, and he's got a hard hat helmet on and is hanging out. And his idea is to have a scorecard at Wrigley Field and keep score and watch the game. Be a fan.

How cool is that? Bill Murray is another one. Bill's around pretty regular, and Bill is part of our pre-game every day. I know him and his brothers grew up not too far from the ballpark. Wrigley Field is part of their childhood.

We all kind of did the same thing, standing out beyond the wall, trying to catch batting practice home runs, and running into Wrigley and seeing the green ivy and the green grass in the middle of downtown in Chicago. It's really a cool thing. And you find out how fun and normal people are when you have something like that in common.

Robby Incmikoski: Tell me about the "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at Wrigley. You've been to all 30 parks. I don't know if it was Harry or what the reason is, but why is "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" so popular and a must-see at Wrigley?

Ron Coomer: That's a Harry thing. That's all about Harry Caray. Every ballpark does it, we know that. But Harry Caray was a larger-than-life character in Chicago when he came over from the White Sox. And he became this character, almost. When he came to the Cubs and started doing the seventh-inning stretch, he was the man of Rush Street. He's a Cubs fan and a Bud man, and all those things.

Pat Hughes tells a great story about Harry in the seventh-inning stretch. He said we would be in spring training—Pat's first year—and Harry would not be doing the game, so he's not working that day, Robbie. But Harry would come to the ballpark with his entourage, and he would do the seventh-inning stretch in spring training every game, and then that was over, and he would leave and go do whatever he was doing, head out to dinner and go have his Budweisers with his buddies, and he would be gone. But every day, he would come and do the seventh-inning stretch, and he felt like that was part of the experience of coming to a Cubs game and being in a home game, whether it was spring training or Wrigley.

And he's right. That's a Harry Caray thing through and through. Harry made that experience be part of the Cubs experience—he just did. And I remember being on the field and watching him sing it from my third base spot and looking up and going, "See, this is really Wrigley. This is really the coolest part of what we do."

Robby Incmikoski: I don't know if you know the answer to this question, Coom, you might not. I'm not trying to trick you. Why do you think Harry loved it so much? Was it just that he was able to have a chance to reignite the fans and get them excited? Or was it just he loved baseball that much, and he liked being part of the experience?

Ron Coomer: He loved baseball. He was an entertainer. He loved people. He still does—as you know, we know he's passed, but he's got a very successful restaurant in downtown Chicago. He would go there regularly. He loved people, he loved the energy, he loved being a part of all that.

He embraced it all. And I don't think, Robbie, as you know, in our world, not everybody embraces celebrity, not everybody embraces being part of the people if you're a well-known person. Harry embraced it all—he just did, and he loved it. He loved the attention, and he loved giving attention to other people. And he loved being part of the Cubs experience. And he was definitely part of the Cubs experience at Wrigley Field.

Kyle Fager: I'm wondering if you have a sort of behind-the-scenes perspective on Wrigley. Is there any quirk or interesting thing that you encounter as somebody who is at the park all the time?

Ron Coomer: I would say the thing that a casual fan would not know about Wrigley—there's two things I want to tell you guys about. One is, when you go to Wrigley Field, I don't think fans totally understand that literally, the ballpark is built in the middle of a neighborhood. All around it is housing and people's homes, and it's a neighborhood, and you're part of the neighborhood.

I don't think people quite grasp that until you're driving into the neighborhood and you're like, two blocks away, people are just living in their homes, and then the neighborhood comes alive for 40,000 people, plus all the people that just go to the bars to watch the game from the bars, which is kind of unique. That's something you don't see in a lot of other cities.

The other thing—Steve McMichael has just passed away. He was a legendary Bears defensive lineman and now Hall of Famer. Well, Steve got kicked out of Wrigley Field after singing the seventh-inning stretch because of a bad call at home plate by Angel Hernandez. The guy that was sliding into home plate that created all that was me.

So I slid in, Angel calls me out. I take my helmet and I spike it off the ground. The manager comes out, Don Baylor gets kicked out of the game. A couple innings later, Steve McMichael is singing the seventh-inning stretch, and he says something to Angel while he's on the field that, "Hey, don't worry about it. I'll take care of this." And it's part of Wrigley Field lore. So then Steve gets kicked out of the game, right from the booth, out of the game, and goes to Murphy's, and he has a beer across the street. So that's a unique one.

Robby Incmikoski: Last thing before I let you go—if there's a fan, there are fans that want to go to all 30 ballparks, and that's kind of the genesis of what we're doing here, Coom. So if there's a fan that has not been to Wrigley Field and wants to go, whether they want to see Wrigley, see the Cubs, or where they want to see the opposing team if they're from another city, what would you say to them to enjoy the experience? How could they go about having a great experience at Wrigley Field?

Ron Coomer: I would say to enjoy your experience at Wrigley Field if you have not been there, you get to the neighborhood early. You always go to a day game for sure. Go to a Friday day game. The neighborhood comes alive. It's a party.

But take in the whole experience. You come to the ballpark at 10:30 or 11. You walk the neighborhood, you stop at a couple of places like Murphy's and the Cubby Bear. Then you stop at a shop and pick up a Cubs hat or something like that.

Then go into the ballpark during batting practice and watch a little bit of the batting practice, and then enjoy the neighborhood after the game and find a little pizza joint and a cold beer and walk the neighborhood and take it in, because it's not just a game—it's an experience of the neighborhood. And I think that's the one thing that people, if they don't experience that in other cities, you just don't see that. There's people at nine o'clock in the morning bellying up at Murphy's on game day, and they're ready to go. So you gotta see the whole thing in its entirety. Pre-game, in-game, post-game, you got to see it all.