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Column: Len Kasper reflects on leaving Chicago Cubs TV after 16 seasons for White Sox radio. ‘This is the mountain I really want to climb.’

Most baseball fans can tell you the voice of summer that seduced them. For Len Kasper, it was Detroit Tigers radio announcer Ernie Harwell who led him to love not only the message but the medium while growing up in Michigan.

The hum and pop of AM radio has proved as enduringly irresistible a siren song as Harwell’s vivid calls over time.

“I want to paint the picture of the great game of baseball on the radio like he did for me growing up,” Kasper explained Friday.

“This wouldn’t really make any sense to anybody unless you were familiar with Len,” said Mike McCarthy, general manager of Marquee Sports Network, the TV channel the Cubs launched this year with Sinclair Broadcast Group that featured Kasper front and center on play-by-play.