The 54-year-old started his radio career at WKRC in Cincinnati and WMUB in Oxford and is Fox News’ Senior Congressional Correspondent.
As a young boy growing up in Butler County, Pergram said he became interested in politics because his family lived across the street from the James M. Cox farm, the former home of the 46th and 48th governor of Ohio and owner of the Dayton Daily News.
Pergram said Reds baseball, with Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall on WLW-700, was the “soundtrack of summer” for the Pergram family.
He and his family attended more than 20 Reds games a year and Pergram was at Riverfront Stadium on Sept. 11, 1985 when Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb’s hit record.
Baseball is part of his DNA, he said.
Then when he attended Miami University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in communications, he lived in the basement of Swing Hall, the same place where the men’s hockey players lived since it was close to Goggin Arena.
Pergram said the Congressional Baseball Game features Republicans vs. Democrats and is “taken very seriously.”
He said there have been home plate collisions that rival when Pete Rose ran over catcher Ray Fosse in the 1970 All-Star Game. When one of the players was injured, the Democrats chanted: “Obama Health Care. Obama Health Care.”
Republicans have won the past two games. In the “modern” era of the game — played since 1962, Republicans have a 36-23 record.
He said tonight’s game will be interesting because former President Donald Trump was in a federal courthouse Tuesday in Miami, Fla. facing 37 criminal charges related to his handling of classified documents at his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort.
Democrats are saying, “We got him,” and Republicans are “defending him and saying the DOJ is out of control,” Pergram said.
Pergram reported live from inside the Capitol building as it was mobbed by rioters on Jan. 6, 2021. He provided minute-by-minute updates on the situation for 15 hours straight on the air until the building was secured.
In 2017, blocks from Pergram’s residence in Alexandria, Va., a gunman opened fire at a baseball practice for Republican members of Congress ahead of the annual Congressional game, critically wounding then-House Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) and injuring several others. Pergram, dressed in sweat pants and hoodie after exercising, led the breaking news coverage and followed the story throughout Scalise’s recovery.
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