John Rooney

On October 26, 2005, at Houston’s Minute Maid Park, Chicago White Sox radio play-by-play broadcaster John Rooney was at his accustomed position behind the ESPN 1000 mic. It was Game Four of the World Series, and a victory over the Houston Astros would give the White Sox their first World Series championship in 88 years. With two out in the bottom of the ninth, the White Sox clinging to a 1-0 lead, and the potential tying run on second base, Astros pinch-hitter Orlando Palmeiro stepped up to face Chicago reliever Bobby Jenks. With the count at one ball and two strikes, Palmeiro swung. Rooney told his listeners what happened next:

Here’s the one-two pitch to Palmeiro … a groundball past Jenks up the middle of the infield. Uribe has it. He throws. Out! Out! A White Sox winner … and a world championship! The White Sox have won the World Series and they’re mobbing each other on the field! … Enjoy the celebration, Chicago … this is LONG overdue!1

As it turned out, that World Series call was the last of John Rooney’s 18-year White Sox broadcasting career. In 2006 he became the radio play-by-play voice of the St. Louis Cardinals … and finished the season with another World Series championship. The back-to-back World Series titles were two of many highlights in the career of the award-winning broadcaster – one that has lasted more than five decades.

John Rooney was born in 1955 in Cameron, Missouri, a city of about 8,000 residents in the northwestern part of the state. When he was a child, the family moved to Richmond, another small Missouri town (population 6,000) about 50 miles south of Cameron. John’s father, Patrick T. Rooney, owned the Rooney Trucking Company. Patrick and his wife, Lila, had three sons (Tom, Jim, and John), and a daughter (Mary); John was the youngest. Patrick was a St. Louis Cardinals fan, but Richmond was much closer to Kansas City than St. Louis, and as a child John’s favorite major-league team was the Kansas City A’s.2

Rooney’s interest in a broadcasting career started early. During a childhood conversation – “I was probably in the in the fifth or sixth grade,” Rooney said – his cousin Dennis told him that his ambition was to become a Top 40 disc jockey in St. Louis. “I said, you can do that?” Rooney recalled. When Dennis said yes, John responded, “Well, I want to be a baseball announcer.” John Rooney, of course, lived to fulfill his ambition. Dennis Rooney went on to a long career as a news anchor in Kansas City prior to his death in 2016.

John Rooney’s broadcasting career began while he was still in high school. “When I was 16,” he recalled, “I went over to the radio station in Lexington, Missouri, and told [station manager] Ray Beckwith, ‘I’m going to do sports for you.’ And he hired me. I did a little bit of everything. I covered high school sports. I sold advertising. I played at record shows. I covered city council meetings, and I even covered a murder trial at 16. That was eye-opening.” Rooney’s work included conducting interviews with St. Louis Cardinals players for his sportscast. After graduation, Rooney said, “I attended the University of Missouri for a year. I ran out of money, so I went back to work in broadcasting, and I’ve been working ever since.” Early gigs included broadcasting University of Missouri basketball games. He was also the first sports director at Missouri Net in Lexington.

In 1980 Rooney began working at KMOX in St. Louis, the Cardinals’ flagship station “as like the 10th guy on the support staff.” A year later, he learned of an opening in Oklahoma City, and he took a cut in pay to broadcast baseball for the Triple-A Oklahoma City 89ers and basketball for Oklahoma City University. After two seasons in Oklahoma, he spent two years (1983-84) with the Louisville Redbirds, the Cardinals’ Triple-A farm team. Rooney also broadcast several major-league baseball games during this period, filling in for Bob Uecker on Milwaukee Brewers radio after Uecker’s mother died, and doing a Cardinals game in Cincinnati with future KMOX partners Jack Buck and Mike Shannon. “That was great,” Rooney said. “I had the call on a George Hendrick double, and it sounded like a fast break in the Final Four. Jack said, “Slow down, you’re gonna wear ’em out, kid. You’ve got 162 of these.”

Rooney returned to KMOX as a sports reporter in 1984. He also began a long association with CBS Sports that year. By this time Rooney was a nationally-known basketball play-by-play broadcaster, and he was asked to work the 1984 NCAA Final Four in Seattle with Curt Gowdy. Rooney wound up doing at least one Final Four game for CBS for 19 years; his CBS Radio assignments also included college football bowl games, NFL Monday Night Football, baseball All-Star games, playoff games, World Series pre- and postgame, and baseball games of the week.3 Rooney was the voice of University of Missouri football and basketball for 20 years. In later years, he also broadcast games for ESPN and FOX, and two seasons of Chicago Bulls NBA games (1989-90 and 1990-91).

In 1987 Rooney left KMOX to join the Minnesota Twins broadcast crew; he worked about 85 or 90 games for the Twins, a schedule that enabled him to continue his CBS work.4 The Twins won the World Series that year, defeating the Cardinals in what turned out to be Rooney’s only season with the club. During the 1987-88 offseason, veteran White Sox play-by-play broadcaster Don Drysdale left to work for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the White Sox hired Rooney to replace him. In 1988, his first year with the club, Rooney worked White Sox television broadcasts along with Tom Paciorek.5 A year later, he began his 17-year stint as the club’s radio play-by-play man, first with Wayne Hagin (1989-91) and then with Ed Farmer, who was Rooney’s radio partner for the remainder of his White Sox career.6 “We had a good, good run together,” said Rooney about working with Farmer.

Not surprisingly, the highlight of Rooney’s White Sox broadcast career was the 2005 World Series championship. “One thing I remember is that just about everything that Ozzie Guillén wanted, Kenny Williams came through with,” he said. “Ozzie needed some help the bullpen and in the outfield, they made the deal with Milwaukee that brought in Scott Podsednik and reliever Luis Vizcaíno. The starting pitching just lined up. The bullpen was really good. That team was solid. It had a chance right from the very beginning of the season to do something special, but it really came on when Bobby Jenks arrived. It was fabulous to have a closer who throws a fastball 100 miles an hour and a breaking ball in the low 90s. He was sensational.”

Rooney’s contract with the White Sox expired after the 2005 season, and he elected to return to KMOX as the Cardinals’ lead radio broadcaster.7 He was behind the mic for Cardinals’ World Series championships in 2006 and 2011, another World Series appearance in 2013, and eight other postseason appearances. Rooney, who has two daughters (Rachel and Colleen) with his wife, Susan, was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2004. He also received the Tom Hammond National Media Award presented by the Kentucky Bluegrass Sports Commission in 2018 and was inducted into the Missouri Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2021.

Rooney’s trademark calls include “It’s a goner!” after a home run and “That’s a White Sox [or Redbirds] winner!” when his team is victorious. He began using the latter call while working at Louisville in 1984; it’s Rooney tribute to Jack Buck, who punctuated Cardinals victories with “That’s a winner!” Rooney is also celebrated for his ability to mimic the voices of other broadcasters. “When I was growing up, there was a guy [Vaughn Meader] who was good at imitating President [John F.] Kennedy,” Rooney said. “I heard that and thought I could probably do Kennedy myself. After that I impersonated my football coach at a couple of assemblies in high school. I tried Jimmy Stewart a few times. In sports, I listened to Denny Matthews broadcasting Kansas City Royals games and started doing him, and then Jack Buck and Harry Kalas and Harry Caray. They weren’t spot on, but they were close enough. And then I added imitations of the teams’ radio broadcasters when we reported the out-of-town scores.”8

Although Rooney has now broadcast Cardinals’ games for more seasons than he worked for the White Sox, his years on the South Side remain special to him. “The interaction I had with Sox fans was always great,” Rooney said. “And they were always so supportive of me. I can’t thank them enough.” He also has fond memories of working with Chicago writers like Jerome Holtzman, Joe Goddard, Tony Ginnetti, Bob Verdi, and Dave van Dyck, as well as his partners on radio and television broadcasts.

“The last time I talked to Vin Scully,” Rooney said, “I said, ‘Vin, you’ve been retired for a while now. Do you miss it?’ And he said, ‘I don’t miss the games. But I do miss the people.’ And when you think about it, that’s what this business is all about. You’re around people you really enjoy. People that make these games happen. The games are fun, and they’re fine. But in the end, the people make it work. And that’s what I enjoy the most.”

Last revised: March 1, 2025

Sources

Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes are from the author’s interview with John Rooney on March 27, 2024.

A history of John Rooney’s broadcasting career can be found at mlb.com/cardinals/team/broadcasters.

Notes

1 “2005 World Series Game 4 Highlights Ed Farmer John Rooney Radio Call,” YouTube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRf4N4peXC8. Accessed June 3, 2024.

2 Rooney’s family information is based on his interview with the author on March 27, 2024.

3 Kent Pulliam, “Rooney Leaving Missouri Network for CBS Job,” Kansas City Star, March 31, 1985: 219.

4 Jon Roe, “New Yorkers Join Twins Broadcasts,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, December 12, 1986: 65.

5 Skip Myslenski, “Sox Team Vet, Rookie in Booth,” Chicago Tribune, April 3, 1988: 357.

6 Steve Nidetz, “Rooney Moves to Sox Radio’s New Team,” Chicago Tribune, December 25, 1988: 60.

7 Fred Mitchell, “Rooney Returns Home for Gig with Cardinals,” Chicago Tribune, November 1, 2005: 3-1.

8 Rooney performed several of his broadcaster imitations at his induction speech for the Missouri Sports Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2021. The speech can be seen at missouribroadcasters.org/hall-of-fame/john-rooney/.