Hall of Famer Wade Boggs has been traveling the USA this summer, hosting short videos for SB Nation on interesting or unusual or offbeat aspects of major-league ballparks.
Recently, Boggs was at Wrigley Field, and the video on this post is an interview with Andrew Belleson, the PA announcer you hear when you're at the ballpark. Belleson is in his third season as the voice of Wrigley Field after several years of the voice of the indy-league Rockford Riverhawks, and as you probably recall, he won an open audition for the position:
The Cubs selected Belleson from 2,954 applications from 48 states and Canada. He began his broadcast career at age 15 with the RiverHawks, helping on a part-time basis during summers off from high school.A native of suburban Arlington Heights, Ill., he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration with a concentration in radio/television broadcasting from Concordia University in River Forest, Ill. He played baseball at Concordia and helped build the sports department for the local college radio station, WCGR 88.5 FM, including broadcasting for football, basketball and baseball games.
It's an interesting short interview with Belleson, who gives some samples of his work, and Boggs himself takes the mike to try his hand at the job. He's actually not bad at it.
Just a bit of fun as we await the beginning of the second half of the 2013 season.