Marquee Sports Network will rotate three fill-in play-by-play announcers when Cubs voice Jon “Boog” Sciambi fulfills his ESPN commitments, station general manager Mike McCarthy said Wednesday. And one of them will make history.
Beth Mowins, who has worked for ESPN since 1994, will become the first woman to call play-by-play for the Cubs. Mowins primarily has called men’s and women’s college sports, and in 2017 she became the first woman in 30 years to call an NFL game.
Pat Hughes will take a break from calling the Cubs on 670 The Score to fill in. Hughes last called baseball on TV in 1983, his first year in the majors, as the voice of the Twins on Spectrum Sports, a pay-TV service. He left for the Brewers’ No. 2 radio job the next season.
Chris Myers, who calls NFL games for Fox and is part of the network’s NASCAR coverage, is the third replacement. He also contributes to Marquee as host of “Chris & Tell,” a monthly interview show.
Sciambi will call more than 130 Cubs games. Which ones he’ll miss and which fill-in will work each game is still to be determined.
Mowins joins four other women working in major-league broadcasting. Melanie Newman filled in on play-by-play for Orioles games last season and is scheduled to do some this season. Suzyn Waldman has been the Yankees radio analyst since 2005. Jenny Cavnar filled in on play-by-play for Rockies TV last season and remains on the broadcasts. And Jessica Mendoza is an ESPN analyst.
Marquee contacted Hughes about the opportunity, but don’t expect him to change his medium permanently. He left the Twins job because he wanted to call baseball on the radio.
“I’m not about to leave Cubs radio,” Hughes said. “I’ll do this until they tell me to jump in the lake.”
Hughes called Marquette basketball on TV on and off from 1985 to 2000, the last third of which he worked with Hall of Fame coach Al McGuire. Hughes said working with McGuire was one of the highlights of his career.
Hughes realizes he’ll have to change his broadcast a bit on TV.
“I’ll try not to talk as much because people can see what‘s going on, so you don’t want to be annoying,” he said. “It’s a balance.”
He also might not feel the need to describe the players’ uniforms in such intricate detail as he does on radio.
“Maybe I’ll just have to describe Jim Deshaies’ uniform instead,” Hughes said.
Marquee announces spring-training schedule
Marquee Sports Network will carry 13 Cubs home games from Sloan Park. The remaining game will air on ESPN, denoted in italics in the schedule below. Plans for broadcasts of road games are being determined. At the moment, Marquee again is planning to broadcast regular-season road games from Wrigley Field.
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More to come ...
