If you've ever listened to a Brewers game on the radio, you probably know the name of Kent Sommerfeld. Though you've never heard his voice, you know his work. He's the engineer and producer of the broadcasts on the Brewers Radio Network, and keeping everything running smoothly with the ever-improvising Bob Uecker and Jim Powell is a tall order. But he's been doing it for 15 years, as well as providing play-by-play for the Marquette Women's basketball team.
For everyone who thinks they know everything about the Brewers, here's an interview with the man behind the men who call Brewers games. We caught up with Kent during a Spring Training game this March at Maryvale Baseball Park in Phoenix, Ariz.
OMC: As Brewers fans, we hear your name a lot, but we don't know exactly what your role is behind the scenes. What does the producer and engineer of a Brewers broadcast do?
KS: The engineer basically takes care of the technical side of the broadcast by setting up equipment and mikes. The producer aspect of my job is working with Jim and Bob in the broadcast booth for the pregame show, deciding what we want to cover that day, and what we deem as important. Sometimes that dictates itself. We work with other games and stories around baseball. Before the game, I will go on the Internet and get all the stories and check box scores of all the games. It's an information gathering job, and I try to get the information that's important to Brewers listeners.
OMC: You've been doing this since 1986?
KS: I came over here at the tail end of the George Bamberger era and the start of Tom Trebelhorn. I was here in 1987 for "Team Streak." It was a great time to be a Brewers fan, and for me, here I was, just a couple of years out of college. I came from Texas where I was working for a TV station with a chance to come back home. I'm originally from Brookfield, and it was fantastic for me to be able to work for my baseball team.
OMC: Were you a Brewers fan growing up?
KS: Yeah, I was. I went to games, I played baseball. I remember going to a game as a kid. I was at the game where Billy Martin had Don Money's grand slam taken away.
OMC: And after 16 years, you're still a fan?
KS: Oh yeah. In the beginning, the losses affected me more than they had to. It's still not easy to take losses, because I'm with the team, I travel with them on the team bus and on the plane. It's always better to be around a club that's winning.
OMC: What's it like to work with Bob Uecker?
KS: It's a blast. That's what makes it easy to do this job -- because we have fun in the booth. If you're up here in the booth and you do 180 games a season -- 162 in the regular season and 18 in Spring Training -- if you're not having fun, trust me, it gets really long. Baseball is a game that isn't dictated by a clock, so sometimes the games go longer. Uecke can inject humor into a game like no other announcer I've ever heard.
OMC: Does he still crack you up?
KS: Yes. And there's a lot of things you don't hear when he presses down the "cough" button. And there are lot of things when the mikes are down during commercials you don't hear. And it's fun.
OMC: What's with all of your legendary nicknames?
KS: You know, for whatever reason, everyone seems to have a different version of who I am. I can be many different guys. When I first game to the Brewers, I got the nickname "Sammy." It has a two-fold meaning. When Uecke first saw me, he said, 'If you were black, you'd look like Sammy Davis, Jr.' And then Pat Hughes said I looked like a player named Sammy Khalifa. There's also "Slime" and "Bones," since I'm a skinny guy. "Kunta Kinte" is one that Ueckey wanted to put on me. "The Label" is one he put on me.
OMC: And without a mike in the booth, you can't respond to all of this?
KS: No, I just plead the Fifth. No comment.
OMC: But you do call games for Marquette?
KS: Yeah, I do call games for Marquette women's basketball. I've been doing that for six years. I also produce and direct the men's games. I get to work with two great guys, Steve True and George Thompson. Their philosophy is a lot like Uecke's, have fun. If you can do that, you're ahead of the ball game.
OMC: Would you like to get into baseball broadcasting?
KS: If I were to get into baseball broadcasting, I would probably have to go down to the minors. I guess if the opportunity presented itself, I would look at it. But I'm still having fun doing what I'm doing now, working with Uecke and Jimmy Powell. I've been fortunate to work with great people, and that's what makes the job easy.
OMC: Do people recognize your name?
KS: Here's a story that summarizes how I've gotten recognized. We were at Yankee Stadium one time, getting on the bus. There was a kid knocking on the window, standing on his dad's shoulders. He kept asking me for my autograph. I told him that I'm not a player, I'm not anybody. Finally I rolled down the window and signed my name. This 11 year old kid looks at the autograph and says in his best Bronx accent, 'You ain't a frickin' nobody!'
There used to be a guy who worked in our broadcast named Mel Hilger. He had a nickname, since everyone in baseball gets a nickname. He was "Good ol' semi retired" Mel Hilger. So when people meet me, they say, 'Boy, I thought you were a lot older.' Everyone thinks I'm 60 years old! I'm only 42 this summer. Or if introduce myself to someone, they'll say, 'I know you from somewhere.' And then I tell them and they say, 'Oh yeah, now I know.' I tell them has cost me a lot of money to get my name mentioned on the radio all the time.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
