When Len Kasper left Cubs TV for White Sox radio, he received a text message from Yankees TV voice Michael Kay.
“Michael said, They would murder me if I was ever announced as the Mets’ voice,” Kasper said.
It’s hard to imagine anyone having that reaction to Kasper’s move, but it was no less stunning. On Dec. 4, 2020, as if the world wasn’t crazy enough, Kasper ended a 16-year run in the Cubs’ booth – matching Hall of Famer Harry Caray – to join the Sox.
He did the reverse of what Caray did Nov. 16, 1981, when he left Sox TV to join Cubs TV and radio. Caray’s popularity exploded on WGN TV, whose superstation status beamed his broadcasts across the country.
Kasper had completed the first season – albeit abbreviated – 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.
But with an opening in the Sox’ radio booth after Ed Farmer’s 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.
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’s working out after five-plus seasons.
“This is where I belong, doing radio every day,” he said. “And being with the White Sox has been immensely fun.
“In 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.”
Fans have to understand that Kasper’s 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.
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’s style is evident in Kasper’s voice, from the tone to the pace to the words.
That’s why he switched sides of town.
“When I started to take stock of what I’d already accomplished, what I’d already witnessed with the Cubs and what potentially I could do that I hadn’t done, it kind of became a pretty easy decision,” Kasper said.
“This is the only job that was open that I would’ve taken because I didn’t 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’t you do it.”
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’ postseason games, which he couldn’t do with the Cubs.
“I was spoiled my first year,” said Kasper, who has meshed perfectly with analyst Darrin Jackson. “But 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.”
What the Sox went through were three consecutive 100-plus-loss seasons. For a broadcaster, that’s no way to go through life. But Kasper still had to keep his audience engaged and entertained.
“Every announcer has a different spin on it,” he said, “but 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.
“I told DJ after the ’24 season [in which the Sox lost a major-league record 121 games], the last six weeks, that’s the best we’ve been together because we had to work at it and we had to really focus on the little things.”
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’s not persona non grata on the North Side. He still has friends there, and Cubs TV analyst Jim Deshaies is one of his best.
But Kasper’s allegiance is to the Sox now, and at some point, hopefully many years down the road, he’ll be honored with a picture on the wall in the home team’s 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.
In the meantime, he’ll keep trying to convince conspiracy theorists of his motive for switching sides of town, as fruitless as it might be.
“I would love for people to take me at my word,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve said it a million times. I don’t know how many more I have to say it.”