Héctor Molina

Horse racing and home run may start with the same letters, but not much more would seem to blend the excitement of the two. Unless Héctor Molina is involved.

Then it becomes the foundation for a voice known to Chicago sports fans for decades.

When the White Sox opened the 2025 season in celebration of the 20th anniversary of their 2005 World Series, Molina had called approximately 3,000 games in 23 seasons for the White Sox. His career in major-league baseball spans more than three decades, as he enters 2025 in his 24th season with the White Sox, first alongside legendary White Sox infielder Alfonso “Chico” Carrasquel – the first Latin American-born player selected as an American League All-Star – in the 1990s, and more recently alongside Billy Russo, who in 2024 completed his 12th season as the White Sox’ Spanish radio color analyst while also serving on the team’s media relations staff as Spanish communications manager and interpreter.

Molina was born in July 1944 in Barceloneta, Puerto Rico, approximately 35 miles west of the territory’s capital city, San Juan. Before even becoming a teenager – let alone before calling a home run – Molina began showing off his voice as the morning DJ for Radio Borinquen (WBQN, 1160 AM), a local news and talk radio station in Barceloneta.

“The idea of working as a DJ never passed through my mind until a neighbor of mine, Juan Felix Ruiz, who was a Spanish teacher, bought a recorder and decided to try it out with the kids in the neighborhood,” Molina said.1

Continuing to teach even outside of the classroom, Ruiz got the wheels turning in Molina’s head, and the latter continued to ponder his interests. An avid horse-racing fan, Molina happened to wonder what his “call” of an imaginary horse race might sound like, and at 12 years old he recorded himself calling the photo finish that he visualized in his head.

Ruiz was captivated when he heard the clip, and asked Molina whether he would have any interest in a career in the radio industry. Molina responded that he would, but the conversation ended there. The ways in which he could use his vocal talents, though, kept expanding.

“If a Spanish teacher was surprised with the diction and creativity of a 12-year-old boy, the idea (of working in radio) was constantly turning in my head,” Molina said. “In high school I belonged to the drama club, and that helped with my diction and helped to eliminate my fears of speaking in front of an audience.”

After Molina graduated from high school, he moved to New York with his uncle and 10 cousins, and his parents came the following year. Upon his arrival, Molina once again found himself infatuated with the urge to be performing for others. He began taking drama classes because he “had been bitten by the acting bug,” he said. “I wanted to be an actor.”

Shortly thereafter, though, he was bitten by a different bug: military recruitment, which led him overseas to Vietnam. Molina was drafted into the US Army and his connection to radio blossomed further; he spent 14 months as the radio operator for the lead sergeant.

After completing his service in Vietnam, he returned to Puerto Rico for his college education, enrolling at Universidad Católica over St. Edward’s University (Austin, Texas) and New York University. The choice was simple: going home.

“I wanted to study in my own language (Spanish) and return to the island,” Molina said.

Molina volunteered with various local community-service programs, and once again he found a desire to continue speaking in public. This time he followed a slightly different path, accepting a role as the master of ceremonies for various community events. Through these events, his urge to pursue a career in radio grew steadily, although they were halted once again due to military service. After marrying his wife, Iraida, in 1972, he resumed military service for a brief period with the US Navy in Puerto Rico in 1973.

He completed his education at Interamerican University of Puerto Rico in San Germán, two hours southwest of Barceloneta, and graduated in 1977 with a degree in sociology, which he pursued in large part thanks to his military service in Vietnam.

“(My time in Vietnam) totally defined who I wanted to be in the future,” Molina said. “My years in college, my experiences in Vietnam and [my major in] sociology changed my way of seeing the world and its inhabitants.”

Now back in New York, Molina still had not pursued a formal career in broadcasting or the radio industry, but he continued inching closer. He added to his résumé with stops at the US Post Office, a nearby Puerto Rican high school, and the Department of Social Services. While in the final role, Molina’s presence at a fundraising event for cancer patients – where he was noticed by the owner of a local radio station – was just the breakthrough he needed.

“The owner of the radio station suggested to me that I ‘try out’ as a DJ, and I accepted,” Molina said. “He told me to go to the radio station when I had time to do some demos and record commercials. He liked me and suggested an unpaid ‘internship’ in which I would learn how to use the console and train on how to use the microphone.

“Finally, after a month, they offered me the shift from 6:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M., which included assisting during the sports segment from 6:00 P.M. to 7:00 P.M. with the sportscaster and professional storyteller Luis Antonio Dávila. I learned a lot with him and with my trainer, Rafael Serrano – ironically also a Spanish teacher – who taught me what radio was and how to use it as an instrument for good.”

Molina made the move upon receiving an offer for a permanent job with the radio station, which paid more and offered greater opportunities for adventure and more travel. After a brief stint as a social worker in Los Angeles during the crisis of the Mariel boatlift, a massive emigration of thousands of Cubans to the United States in the early 1980s, Molina realized that his career – and, quite frankly, his life – was reaching a pivotal inflection point.

He traveled to Chicago, where radio producer Elias Díaz y Pérez (who once offered Molina a job while the latter was in the midst of his radio work in Puerto Rico) was a well-known figure. With his sister already living in Chicago, Molina felt that the Windy City would be a good destination to prove himself behind the microphone, and he asked the producer to assist with finding such an opportunity. A morning news segment became available shortly thereafter, and Pérez offered to help Molina get started.

Just as in baseball, where the smallest of plays can blossom into the start of a rally, so too did the assistance from Elias Díaz y Pérez.

“Elias Díaz y Pérez was one of the people to whom I am most grateful for the opportunity he gave me,” Molina said with gratitude. “After I had spent three months with the news, his morning DJ resigned for money reasons and I became the full-time morning announcer. I was able to bring my family, and the adventure and the trip began again.”

Molina expressed plenty of gratitude for the support he has received along the way, but those he has worked with have happily reciprocated the appreciation. When Molina took his next position with a new 24-hour radio station in Chicago (WOJO-105 FM) to handle the news segments, he regretfully approached his boss to say goodbye, knowing the confidence that had been shown in him during his time at the station. Molina received a kind reassurance that he still remembers to this day: “I have never had a more responsible person working for me than you. You deserve (this new opportunity) and these doors will always be open for you.”

With two more years of news and radio under his belt, Molina and his family moved to downtown Chicago, where he worked morning radio from 1987 to 1994, the latest step in the path bringing Molina increasingly closer to the diamond. That step proved to be instrumental: When Molina’s news chief joined the executive ranks and thereby lost his side job as a Spanish baseball commentator with the station that had recently begun broadcasting Cubs games, he recommended Molina as his successor.

Molina’s dream of breaking into the world of sports had finally become a reality.

While with WOJO, he spent the 1987 and 1988 seasons as an analyst for Bears games, an experience he believes helped to elevate his name and popularity among fans in Chicago. In 1992, the White Sox and the Chicago Bulls agreed to broadcast their games together for the next five years, and in 1994 Molina resigned from his role with the WOJO morning show to broadcast both teams’ games on a more permanent basis, spanning both the regular season and the playoffs.

“I enjoyed the ‘Beatles’ experience when I did all the Chicago Bulls games (regular season and playoffs),” Molina said. “Four rings are the visual witness of that fabulous experience with Michael (Jordan), Scottie (Pippen), and the gang.”

Having already called playoff games for the Bulls, Molina made his playoff debut in 1998 when the Caracol Network and ESPN joined forces to bring the broadcast of the World Series between the Yankees and the Padres to Latin America.

“I got the call from Armando Talavera in New York, and I couldn’t believe it,” Molina said.

He proceeded to call American League playoff games in 1999 and 2000, in addition to working as a reporter for the 2003 All-Star Game. After his eight seasons broadcasting White Sox games from 1992-99, Molina returned to the South Side of Chicago in 2005 as part of the team’s one-year agreement with Univision Radio in which he would call 20 regular-season games, the first time since 1999 that the White Sox offered a Spanish-language radio broadcast.2 Molina’s time with the team continued into October, as he stayed on to cover the White Sox’ magical playoff run – just the team’s fourth postseason appearance since 1983 – culminating in the 2005 World Series championship, the third in franchise history and the first since 1917.

Upon meeting Molina, White Sox radio play-by-play broadcaster Len Kasper quickly noticed – and has since appreciated – Molina’s approachability.

“I had met him a while ago, but didn’t know a ton about him,” Kasper said. “I just know that he loved baseball and people. … He’s magnetic. He’s got a magnetic personality and that’s what always stuck out to me more than anything else.”

Russo considered whether he could pick a favorite game or memory of his time alongside Molina, then replied, “I don’t think I can pick just one. Every day with Héctor is entertaining. It can be because the game is a very exciting game, and even [when the game might not be] as good as we were expecting, there’s always something in the booth with him that you know that you’re going to enjoy that day. And it can be a comment about the game, it can be a comment about how his day is going, a comment about his family. … There’s always something that makes you smile.”

“He’s got a ton of energy from the first pitch till the last, and I always appreciate – you can tell from the minute you meet him – that he loves baseball and he loves being at the ballpark,” Kasper said, having often observed Molina from the neighboring booth. “I have so much fun at the ballpark that you want to be around people who feel the same way you do, and a lot of people do, but there are certain special people [for whom] you can tell: This is not a job. In Héctor’s case, it’s totally genuine. It’s never forced – he loves being around the sport as much as I do — and that matters to me. I like him even more because of that – I feel like we’re kindred spirits.”

Kasper later added: “I love his voice and the energy of his calls, but for me it’s more about the person – he’s such a memorable person because he lights up a room everywhere he goes. He’s just got this great laugh, and I could just hear him tell stories for hours. He’s just one of those people – when he walks into a room, you just feel good, he makes you feel good about life.”

Kasper was not alone in noticing the positive energy. Recalling the start of his partnership with Molina, Russo noted: “We didn’t have that chemistry that you build through the years. So our first time working together, he had a particular style and I have a different style – he’s been doing this here for a very long time and I was used to calling games in Venezuela, so it’s a little different. And when you’re doing this for the first time with a new person, you try to get to know him. Especially with him being the play-by-play, I was trying to figure out…how to mesh with his narrative. But he made that transition pretty easy, and we would talk during the breaks [to coordinate transitions]. It was an honest exchange on how to improve our work and how to make it very smooth and really professional.”

Russo also observed a relationship with Molina that stretched beyond solely their occupation. “To me, not just because of the age gap, but he’s like a relative – like an uncle or something like that. We have that kind of a relationship, and he brings that to the booth. There’s always a teaching moment, because we always try to explain things to the audience and even sometimes to ourselves.

“And he did it just because that’s the way that he is,” Russo added. “He doesn’t have an ego, and that’s huge. And I think that’s one of the things that made us click right away.”

Molina’s openness and engaging personality has been beneficial far beyond his own career and family. Molina has been an integral mentor for many, including the legendary White Sox manager Ozzie Guillén – who, as Russo noted, is “a guy that is loved in Chicago” – and his son Ozzie Jr., forming a close bond with both father and son when Molina would travel with the team.

Russo continued lauding Molina’s mentorship abilities: “One of the first things I knew about Héctor, and this came from Ozzie Jr. He said, ‘He was my teacher. He taught me how to call games, he taught me how to be on radio. And that was very good.’ … Those two (Guillén Sr. and Guillén Jr.) hold Héctor in a really big regard. They really respect him, they really like the job that he does, and they listen to him. When Ozzie Jr. used to do games with Héctor, Héctor usually would give him advice about radio, work and sometimes even about life, and how to take advantage of the situation that he was in.

“And that’s something that Ozzie Jr. would always remember.”

From a broadcaster’s standpoint, that sincere personality even transmitted across the radio waves. “This is what I like about every great broadcaster: He is himself on the air, and it’s the same off the air – there’s no act,” Kasper said. “And I think the all-time greats generally are who they are all the time, and that’s the best compliment I could ever give anyone. And when I can hear Héctor and see him and then I talk to him off the air, he’s the same exact person.”

Russo noted that Molina has been portrayed throughout his career as maintaining a “colorful” approach to his work. In addition to his signature “Sayonara, baby” after a White Sox home run, one of Molina’s best-known lines – “Lo retrataron de cuerpo entero” (“They portrayed him in full body”) – would often illustrate a key strikeout.

“One of the things that makes Héctor a great play-by-play [broadcaster] is that he knows the story of the game, and then he knows when to mix that knowledge with the game situation,” Russo said. “And those are things that get listeners excited.”

The excitement from listening to Molina stems from more than just his popular one-liners. Having spent decades in the Windy City, Molina has built a familiarity with Chicago sports – and the market as a whole – which has fostered an overwhelmingly positive reception from White Sox fans.

“He knows what the listeners like to listen to, because he knows the market,” Russo said. “I was new here, so there were some words that I would say that wouldn’t connect with the audience. … Even during specific situations in games, we would discuss that “[t]his is called this way in Venezuela” or “[t]his is called this way in Puerto Rico” and then we would explain that situation on air, and that would add to the broadcast and make it more entertaining.

“It really didn’t take us long to blend, and I think it was easy and that in a big measure was because of him.”

Among fans, colleagues and players, the sentiment about Molina remains constant: happiness. Others feel it about Molina because they so often see it evident in him.

“He’s just a very popular person at the ballpark because he always greets you with a smile on his face,” Kasper said. “I was once told that you should broadcast with a smile on your face, and Héctor obviously learned that at a very young age because he does it to this day incredibly well.”

Molina’s relentless dedication to his craft earned him a trip to the plate; his voice and joyous spirit carried him the rest of the way. He had hit a home run in his first at-bat at the highest level, and his skills and personality kept shining forth with each new opportunity.

Last revised: March 1, 2025

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Billy Russo, a partner of Molina in the broadcast booth as well as the White Sox’ Spanish communications manager and interpreter, for his insights on Molina in addition to his coordination of interviews and contact with Molina in preparation of this article.

Much of the research for in this essay was originally conducted as part of a previous profile of Héctor Molina written for Béisbol on the Air (McFarland, 2024 – edited by Jorge Iber and Anthony R. Salazar).

Notes

1 All comments attributed to Héctor Molina, Len Kasper, and Billy Russo are from the author’s conversations with each in 2021.

2 Closing Bell, May 2, 2005,” Sports Business Journal. May 2, 2005. https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Closing-Bell/2005/05/02/Closing-Bell-May-2-2005.aspx.