Posted by detectivetom on September 7, 2025, 11:09 am
The Bears begin the season tomorrow night and once again Jeff Juniak and Tom Thayer will call the action. Thayer has been doing color since 1997 and Juniak play by play since 2001. The duo now break the record of the team of Jack Brickhouse and Irv Kupicinet who were together 23 continuous years.
Hard to believe those old timers’ record would ever be broken. The first Bears radio announced back in 1933 was Bob Easton, later the White Sox announcer.
That is Bob Elston, of course. Who along with Red Rush came up with that famous line, “that Gonnella is Swella,” for the bread first baked in the Roseland/Kensington neighborhood.
Jeff Joniak's association with the Chicago Bears goes beyond what I think is now his 24th season as the soundtrack to these games, starting their 2nd season on ESPN Radio 1000 AM this eve.
Dating back to when WBBM Newsradio 780 AM/WCFS 105.9 FM had the Bears' radio rights, Joniak was more than just the play by play voice. Dating back to 1997, Joniak hosted pre, halftime & postgame for the games that were called back then by Wayne Larrivee & then Gary Bender once Larrivee left for the Green Bay Packers.
JJ also anchored sports updates at :15 & :45 past every hour in afternoon drive on 'BBM as well as 'CFS when they started to simulcast in 2011. I think when WBBM/WCFS had the radio rights, I would also like to say that Joniak did his sportscasts from Halas Hall in Lake Forest.
I have never liked JJ and TT. (I like to turn my radio sound down and my tv sound up! lol) ESPN missed its chance to hire new voices when it became the new flagship over WBBM-AM. Maybe it was financial? JJ and TT aren't big money guys and maybe ESPN wanted to keep their costs down. Forget the A-Team and stick with the B-Team.
on September 7, 2025, 11:09 am