For Jon “Boog” Sciambi, the opportunity to become the play-by-play voice of the Cubs was a no-brainer.

“I wanna be where baseball matters, and baseball matters on the North Side of Chicago,” Sciambi said Monday afternoon after being introduced as the next voice of the Chicago Cubs. “I think this job is special. That’s really what it comes down to.”

It’s what will excite him about going to Wrigley Field to call games. He’s an avid baseball fan through and through, so this opportunity may as well have been a green-light, 3-0 fastball down the middle for Sciambi.

That will transcend through the airwaves when he talks to the legions of Cubs fans for the first time and brings the action to their living rooms and homes.

“I’m gonna be happy to be at Wrigley in Chicago and that it’s gonna be fun,” Sciambi said. “I like to play. I’m gonna want it to be smart and interesting and fun.”

So, what you see is what you’re going to get from Sciambi. The guy you hear over the air will be the same guy you get when you run into him at Wrigley Field before a Cubs game. It’ll be the same person who’s ordering a sugar-free, flour-less meal at a restaurant in Wrigleyville.

“If there’s something that we’re gonna chuckle at sitting in the food room, I’m probably gonna try it on the air,” Sciambi said. “Not the food, the joke. That’s kinda the thing. That’s the way I do it. I wanna play and have fun. I enjoy it.”

And he’ll do it all at a ballpark that is special to him.

Sciambi grew up watching Cubs games when he got home in the afternoon, listening to Harry Caray and Steve Stone. When he was around 12 years old, his father flew out to Chicago for a business trip and brought his baseball-crazed son with him to take in an Astros-Cubs game that featured hall of fame pitcher Nolan Ryan.

“It was one of the first times I had been on a plane, we saw Nolan Ryan pitch at Wrigley,” Sciambi said. “I think we ate dinner at the Bennigan’s at O’Hare and I was fired up about that.”

Then, a little under 20 years later, while he was working as the Marlins broadcaster in 2000, a group of friends along with his divorced parents surprised him by flying up to Chicago to take in the Marlins-Cubs game in April for his 30th birthday. Around the 6th or 7th inning of the game, someone tapped him on the shoulder and had him look down at the crowd, where he saw the group of family and friends.

“That’s the connection,” Sciambi said.

He hopes that in his position he’ll be able to share that type of intimacy that exists between fans and their beloved Cubs.

“I’m pretty humbled and I don’t take it lightly, the position I’m being put in because I know how much the team, this job means to the fans and to you guys,” Sciambi said. “I’m thrilled to get this opportunity. It is gonna be fun and I look forward to doing it and connecting with the community but doing it every day and getting a chance to connect with the fans.

“It’ll be a lot of fun.”