[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 206 (Thursday, December 19, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7194-S7195]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           RECOGNIZING WGN-TV

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we find ourselves in the usual December 
doldrums. We are somewhere between the end of the baseball season and 
the beginning of spring training. It is a time to reflect and a time to 
dream.
  A familiar offseason refrain from many die-hard Chicago Cubs fans is, 
``Wait `til next year'' or ``next season will be different.'' Well, 
next season will indeed be different as Cubs fans will not, in the 
immortal words of Steve Goodman, be able to ``catch it all on WGN.'' 
Chicago Cubs baseball is moving to the new Marquee Sports Network. I 
want to take a moment to honor WGN's long-standing commitment to 
unsurpassed sports coverage and their historic partnership with the 
Cubs.
  I think it is safe to say that, for the most part, Cubs fans are an 
optimistic bunch. We have endured some very tough seasons and the 
longest championship drought in Major League Baseball. Of course, in 
2016, the Cubs rewarded their fans with a World Series championship, 
the first in more than a century. Throughout much of that century, fans 
could count on watching their favorite team on ``Chicago's Very Own,'' 
WGN-TV. In fact, for 72 years, WGN helped spread the thrills of Cubs 
baseball through player milestones, including Mr. Cub Ernie Banks' 
500th homerun, pennant races, October baseball, and more than a few 
lean years.
  The Cubs game on April 23, 1948, wasn't a particularly memorable one. 
They lost 1-0 to the rival St. Louis Cardinals. History was made not on 
the field but in the broadcast booth as WGN-TV aired its first Cubs 
game and set in motion the longest baseball-TV relationship in baseball 
history. Since then, WGN-TV has aired 7,115 Cubs games, reaching fans 
across the country and around the globe.
  It was a great risk for the Cubs to start airing all their games on 
television. What if people stopped going to games and only watched from 
home? After all, WGN-TV made it feel like you were at the game. The 
Zoomar lens brought long shots and close-ups into focus as a television 
cameraman swung quickly from views of the whole diamond to close-ups of 
batting, pitching, and action in the bullpen. But the gamble was worth 
it. The Cubs drew 1.2 million fans to Wrigley Field in 1948, despite 
losing 90 games that season.
  It became a tradition for kids to come home after school to watch the 
Cubs on WGN. Hall of famers Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ron Santo,

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Fergie Jenkins, Andre Dawson, Ryne Sandberg, and a host of Cubs stars 
became household names to fans across the country. Many a big leaguer 
today will tell stories about watching the Cubs on WGN-TV and dreaming 
of playing at Wrigley Field.
  Generations of fans grew up knowing the sights and sounds of WGN-TV's 
Jack Brickhouse yelling, ``Hey-hey!'' or Harry Caray's ``Holy cow!'' 
and his famous rendition of ``Take Me Out to the Ball Game.'' Both of 
these hall of famers informed, entertained, and thrilled us for decades 
with their play-by-play. They dazzled in the booth even when the action 
on the field fell a bit short. WGN legendary producer/director Arne 
Harris was behind the scenes from the 1960s through 2001, bringing us 
baseball history from Wrigley Field. A distinguished list of announcers 
also graced the WGN-TV broadcast booth including Milo Hamilton, Lou 
Boudreau, Vince Lloyd, and Lloyd Pettit. Today, Len Kasper and Jim 
Deshaies faithfully continue that tradition and are our trusted guides 
to Cubs baseball. They will continue, along with WGN-TV director of 
production and author Bob Vorwald, on the new network in 2020.
  I want to take this opportunity to thank WGN-TV president general 
manager Paul Rennie and all the good people at WGN who brought us the 
sights and sounds of the Cubs and the Friendly Confines for 72 years.
  In addition to those already mentioned, we acknowledge longtime 
sports editor Jack Rosenberg, who routinely pulled off the impossible 
in support of the telecast; directors Chris Erskine, Jack Jacobson, 
Bill Lotzer, Skip Ellison, and Marc Brady; and videographer Joe 
Pausback. My friend, Shaun Sheehan, was WGN's ambassador to Washington 
and to the Congress for nearly three decades. And countless assistant 
directors, technical directors, camera operators, audio engineers, 
video shaders, and sales, business, and station executives, including 
Jim Tianis, Frank Leone, Mike Aiello, Scott Jones, Steve Casey, Mike 
Clay, Mark Stencel, Marty Wilke, Errol Gerber, Marissa Rudman, Jake 
Fendley, Mark Boe, Jeff Shaw, Ward Quaal, Joe Loughlin, Dennis 
FitzSimons, Peter Walker, John Vitanovec, Tom Ehlmann, Greg Easterly, 
Jim Dowdle, Sheldon Cooper, Jim Zerwekh, Bob Ramsey, Tom Boyd, and 
Terry ``Whitey'' Pearson truly made Cubs baseball on WGN-TV special.
  As Bob Vorwald said just before the final games on WGN, ``We want to 
tip our hat to Jack Brickhouse and Harry Caray and all the people that 
have announced and the thousands of men and women that have worked on 
the games. But, the best way to do that is by having a great telecast. 
That's always been our mission, and it's important that we uphold that 
to the very end.''
  As WGN-TV and all the people who made Chicago Cubs baseball telecasts 
possible sign off, let me join the countless fans in thanking them for 
creating an American standard of broadcasting excellence.

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