Cubs Announcer Ron Coomer's Will County Old Timers Message: Chicago Cubs Will Be Great In 2026

JOLIET, IL — One of the greatest annual community events in all of Joliet — the 75th annual Will County Old Timers Baseball Reunion — drew more than 600 baseball enthusiasts to Joliet's Clarion Hotel on Thursday night. Ron Coomer, the Lockport native, former Major League Baseball All-Star and highly respected Chicago Cubs radio announcer, kept the crowd laughing and filled with optimism about the upcoming 2026 season for the Cubs.

The Lockport High School product played Major League Baseball for the Minnesota Twins, Cubs, New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers during his nine-year MLB career, and this season will mark his 13th year of working with Pat Hughes in the Cubs radio booth.

This marked the second time Coomer has returned to Joliet to serve as the guest speaker for the Will County Old Timers banquet. He was also here back in 2018. He's also owner of the Coom's Corner Sports Grill in Lockport.

Coomer told the room filled with baseball fans, young and old, that the highlights of his career included playing in his first major league game, making the 1999 All-Star game at Fenway Park in Boston and hitting a homerun in his first at bat at Yankees Stadium.

Coomer also wanted everyone to know he is extremely humble and appreciative of how his career has gone. He has had a chance to work in baseball twice, both as a player and now as a radio announcer for the Cubs, returning to his hometown of Lockport and Joliet, he said.

Coomer remarked how baseball is the one sport where you don't have to be 6-foot-9.

He mentioned how he played with Minnesota Twins great Kirby Puckett, who was 5-foot-7 and also against flame-throwing star pitcher Randy Johnson, who was 6-foot-10.

"Our sport, we can all play, and that's the cool thing," Coomer reminded his room full of more than 600 guests. Coomer then turned to his friend, Joliet Mayor Terry D'Arcy, owner of D'Arcy Motors, and laughed, "It's not the car business, Terry, but it's a pretty good gig."

As far as the 2025 season for the Cubs, Coomer reflected, "we had a really good year, this year. We signed Tuck (Kyle Tucker)."

After just losing Tucker to the Dodgers and replacing his bat in the lineup with former Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman, Coomer said, "we are going to be great this year."

Coomer said the Cubs should win their National League division and give the back-to-back World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers a run for their money in 2026. Coomer also said that this week's Milwaukee Brewers trade of ace pitcher Freddy Peralta to the New York Mets helps the Cubs even more.

A major key for that success will be outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong. After an unbelievable first half of 2025, the rest of the league managed to figure him out and he had a disappointing second half.

"He's got to make the adjustments now," Coomer said of Armstrong.

Coomer allotted a significant portion of his talk for audience questions.

Atlanta Braves fan Jim Lanham asked Coomer if baseball needs to implement a salary cap, given the enormous disparity in team payroll between the top teams such as the Dodgers, Mets and Yankees versus the league's bottom-spenders such as the Chicago White Sox, Pittsburgh Pirates, Florida Marlins, etc.

Coomer said he has never been a fan of the salary cap, however, he predicted the MLB owners ultimately will force a work stoppage prior to the 2027 season.

"There will be a salary cap," Coomer predicted, suggesting the new salary cap will include a bottom line and floor ceiling for team spending.

Coomer said that right now, some teams are generating about $130 million and not spending money, instead putting it back into their pockets.

Knowing that a work stoppage appears imminent before the 2027 season, Coomer announced, "I don't think we're going to start the season. Maybe I'll be selling cars for Terry (D'Arcy.)"

Coomer was asked about his time on the New York Yankees, playing for the late George Steinbrenner.

"He was a great owner. He wanted to do one thing and one thing only, win."

For Coomer, being able to broadcast alongside Pat Hughes during the Cubs' seventh game victory in the 2016 World Series was the highlight of his broadcasting career, so far.

As for the 2026 season, Coomer had this to say: "Our lineup is going to be awesome. We're going to be really good this year. If we stay as we are now, our infield is going to be dynamic."

Coomer saved his funniest story for the end of the night.

It involved his time on the Dodgers after LA acquired baseball's greatest all-time base stealer, the always colorful outfielder Rickey Henderson, during the 2003 season. Coomer began by telling a story how Henderson told reporters how "Rickey don't hit second," after the Dodgers manager initially penciled Henderson into their lineup as the No. 2 hitter, not as the leadoff man.

Apparently, Henderson was not interested in learning the names of any his teammates, and even though he was one of baseball's biggest millionaires in the 1990s, he took a liking to Coomer because Coomer had a plethora of free tobacco-chewing products.

Coomer said he started giving away some of his tobacco tins to Henderson. Not bothering to learn Coomer's real name, Henderson took a liking to his new Dodgers teammate and started calling him, "Hey, Croom."

Coomer said he gave Henderson a free sleeve of chewing tobacco tins to use over the next week of games.

Eventually, after being on the Dodgers for at least a couple of weeks, Henderson approached "Croom" once again. This time, Henderson told "Croom" he needed to ask their manager a question, but he had no idea what their manager's name was — even though Jim Tracy had been the Dodgers established manager for the past few seasons by then.

"What the hell is his name?" Henderson asked Croom.