Harry Caray Biography

Harry Caray, born Harry Christopher Carabina (March 1, 1914 - February 18, 1998) was an American sportscaster on radio and television. He covered five Major League Baseball teams, beginning with 25 years of calling the games of the St. Louis Cardinals with two of these years also spent calling games for the St. Louis Browns. After a year working for the Oakland Athletics and eleven years with the Chicago White Sox, Caray spent the last sixteen years of his career as the announcer for the Chicago Cubs. He has won multiple Emmy Awards for baseball play-by-play and studio work for NBC Sports.

Early life

Caray was born Harry Christopher Carabina to an Italian father and Romanian mother in St. Louis. He was an infant when his father died. His mother remarried with a French-American, but after her death when Caray was eight, he went to live with his aunt Doxie at 1909 LaSalle Street in a tough, working-class section of St. Louis. As a young man, Caray played baseball at the semi-pro level for a short time before auditioning for a radio job at the age of 19. He then spent a few years learning the trade at radio stations in Joliet, Illinois, and Kalamazoo, Michigan. While in Joliet, WCLS station manager Bob Holt suggested that Harry change his surname from Carabina (because according to Holt, it sounded too awkward on the air) to Caray. Caray did play-by-play for the St. Louis Hawks professional basketball team (now the Atlanta Hawks) and the University of Missouri football team, and he announced three Cotton Bowl games.

Career

St. Louis Cardinals / St. Louis Browns

Caray caught his break when he landed the job with the Cardinals in 1945 and, according to several histories of the franchise, proved as expert at selling the sponsor's beer as he'd been in selling the Cardinals on KMOX. Immediately preceding the Cardinal job, Caray announced hockey games for the St. Louis Flyers. Caray co-announced with Ralph Bouncer Taylor, former NHL player. On one occasion Taylor temporarily ended his retirement when he volunteered to play goalie for the Flyers in a regular season game with the team from Minnesota. (Caray and broadcast partner Gabby Street also called games for the St. Louis Browns in 1945-1946.) Caray was also seen as influential enough that he could affect team personnel moves; Cardinals historian Peter Golenbock (in The Spirit of St. Louis: A History of the St. Louis Cardinals and Browns) has suggested Caray may have had a partial hand in the maneuvering that led to the exit of general manager Bing Devine, the man who had assembled the team that won the 1964 World Series, and of field manager Johnny Keane, whose rumored successor, Leo Durocher (the succession didn't pan out), was believed to have been supported by Caray for the job. Caray, however, stated in his autobiography that he liked Johnny Keane as a manager, and didn't want to be involved in Keane's dismissal. As the Cardinals' announcer, Caray broadcast three World Series (1964, 1967, and 1968) on NBC. In November 1968 Caray was nearly killed after being struck by an automobile while crossing a street in St. Louis; he suffered two broken legs in the accident, but recuperated in time to return to the broadcast booth for the start of the 1969 season. Following the 1969 season, Caray was fired by the Cardinals after having called their games for 25 years, his longest tenure with any sports team.

Oakland Athletics

He spent one season broadcasting for the Athletics, in 1970, before, as he often told interviewers, he grew tired of owner Charles O. Finley's interference and accepted a job with the Chicago White Sox. (Apparently the feeling was mutual; Finley later said "that shit [Caray] pulled in St. Louis didn't go over here.") Finley wanted Caray to change his broadcast chant of "Holy Cow" to "Holy Mule."

However, there were some reports that Caray and Finley did, in fact, work well with each other and that Caray's strained relationship with the A's came from longtime A's announcer Monte Moore; Caray was loose and free-wheeling while Moore was more restrained and sedate.

Chicago White Sox

Caray joined the Chicago White Sox in 1971 and quickly became popular with the South Side faithful and enjoying a reputation for joviality and public carousing (sometimes doing home game broadcasts bare-chested from the bleachers). He wasn't always popular with players, however; Caray had an equivalent reputation of being excessively critical of home team blunders and for continuing criticism of certain players after even one on-field mistake. During his tenure with the White Sox, Caray was teamed with many color analysts who didn't work out well, including Bob Waller, Bill Mercer and ex-Major League catcher J. C. Martin, among others. But in 1976, during a game against the Texas Rangers, Caray had former outfielder Jimmy Piersall (who was working for the Rangers at the time) as a guest in the White Sox booth that night. The tandem proved to work so well that Piersall was hired to be Caray's partner in the White Sox radio and TV booth beginning in 1977. Piersall and Caray became very popular.

Among Caray's experiences during his time with the White Sox was the infamous "Disco Demolition Night" promotion. On July 12, 1979, what began as a promotional effort by Chicago radio station WLUP, the station's popular DJ Steve Dahl, and the Sox to sell seats at a White Sox/Detroit Tigers double-header resulted in a debacle. As Dahl blew up a crate full of disco records on the field after the first game had ended, thousands of rowdy fans from the sold-out event poured from the stands onto the field at Comiskey Park. Caray and Piersall, via the public address system, tried to calm the crowd and implored them to return to their seats, in vain. Eventually the field was cleared by Chicago Police in riot gear and the White Sox were forced to forfeit the second game of the double-header due to the extensive damage done to the playing field. Caray left the White Sox after the 1981 season, replaced by Don Drysdale. However, the popular Caray was soon hired by the crosstown Cubs for the 1982 season.

Chicago Cubs

Caray increased his renown after joining the North Side Cubs following the 1981 season. In contrast to the "SportsVision" concept, the Cubs' own television outlet, WGN-TV, had become among the first of the cable television superstations, offering their programming to providers across the United States for free, and Caray became as famous nationwide as he had long been on the South Side and, previously, in St. Louis. In fact, Caray had already been affiliated with WGN for some years by then, as WGN actually produced the White Sox games for broadcast on competitor WSNS-TV, and Caray was a frequent sportscaster on the station's newscasts. Caray succeeded longtime Cubs broadcaster Jack Brickhouse, a beloved announcer and Chicago media fixture.

The timing worked in Caray's favor, as the Cubs ended up winning the National League East division title in 1984 with WGN-TV's nationwide audience following along. Millions came to love the microphone-swinging Caray, continuing his White Sox practice of leading the home crowd in singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh inning stretch, mimicking his mannerisms, his gravelly voice, his habit of mispronouncing or slurring some players' names "? which some of the players mimicked in turn "? and even his trademark barrel-shaped wide-rimmed glasses, prescribed for him by Dr. Cyril Nierman, O.D.

In February 1987 Caray suffered a stroke while at his winter home near Palm Springs, California, just prior to spring training for the Cubs' 1987 season. This led to his absence from the broadcast booth through most of the first two months of the regular season, with WGN featuring a series of celebrity guest announcers on game telecasts while Caray recuperated.

Caray's national popularity never flagged after that, although time eventually took a toll on him. Nicknamed "The Mayor of Rush Street", a reference to Chicago's famous tavern-dominated neighborhood and Caray's well-known taste for Budweiser, illness and age began to drain some of Caray's skills, even in spite of his remarkable recovery from the 1987 stroke. There were occasional calls for him to retire, but he was kept aboard past WGN's normal mandatory retirement age, an indication of how popular he was. Toward the end of his career, Caray's schedule was limited to home games and road trips to St. Louis and Milwaukee.

In December 1997, Caray's grandson Chip Caray was hired to share play-by-play duties for WGN's Cubs broadcasts with Caray for the following season. However, Harry Caray died in February 1998, before the baseball season began, leaving the expected grandfather-grandson partnership in the broadcast booth unrealized.

The seventh-inning stretch

Caray's famous seventh-inning stretch singing of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" began during his tenure with the White Sox. Team owner Bill Veeck noticed the announcer liked to hum the song along with Comiskey Park organist Nancy Faust. Veeck asked Caray if he could give him a microphone so he could sing for the entire park, but the announcer wanted no part of it. Veeck then proceed to advise Caray that he had already taped the announcer singing during commercial breaks and said he could play that recording if Caray preferred. Instead, Caray agreed to sing it live, accompanied by Faust on the organ, and went on to become famous for singing the tune, continuing to do so at Wrigley Field after becoming the broadcaster of the Chicago Cubs during the seventh-inning stretch, using a hand-held microphone and holding it out outside the booth window.

Many of these performances began with Caray speaking directly to the baseball fans in attendance either about the state of the day's game, or the Chicago weather, while the park organ held the opening chord of the song. Then with his trademark opening, "All right! Lemme hear ya! Ah-One! Ah-Two! Ah-Three!" Harry would launch into his distinctive, down-tempo version of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame". During his tenure announcing games at Comiskey Park and later Wrigley Field, he would often replace "root, root, root for the home team" with "root, root, root for the White Sox (Cubbies)". For the lyrics "One, Two, Three, strikes you're out ..." Harry would usually hold the microphone out to the crowd to punctuate the climactic end of the song. And if the visitors were ahead in that game, Harry would typically make a plea to the home team's offense: "Let's get some runs!"

The seventh-inning stretch routine became Caray's best-remembered trademark; after his death, the Cubs began a practice of inviting guest celebrities, local and national, to lead the singing Caray-style. The use of "guest conductors" continues to this day. Since installing the jumbotron screens inside Wrigley Field in 2015, the Cubs have periodically shown video footage of Caray singing "Take Me Out To The Ball Game". as the fans sing along.

During the 2009 NHL Winter Classic at Wrigley Field, as the Chicago Blackhawks hosted the Detroit Red Wings on New Year's Day 2009, former Blackhawks players Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, and Denis Savard and former Cubs players Ryne Sandberg and Ferguson Jenkins sang a hockey-themed version of the seventh-inning stretch; "Take Me Out to the Hockey Game" used lines such as "Root, root, root for the Blackhawks" and "One, two, three pucks, you're out." The Blackhawks would do this again in during the White Sox - Cubs game at Wrigley Field. This time, it was members of the Stanley Cup winning team.

Personality and style

Caray had a number of broadcasting partners and colleagues through the years, some of whom made known their dislike of the man. He had a particularly frosty relationship with Milo Hamilton, his first partner with the Cubs, who felt Caray had pushed him out in St. Louis in the mid-1950s. Hamilton (who'd been the presumptive successor to Jack Brickhouse prior to Caray's hiring) was fired by WGN in 1984; he claimed that station officials told him that the main reason was that Caray did not like him.

Caray's longtime St. Louis partner, Jack Buck, was guarded in his comments about Caray in his own autobiography, while acknowledging that he sometimes felt held back by Caray. However, Caray also did not lack for broadcast companions who played well with and off him. With the White Sox, his longest-lasting partner was Jimmy Piersall; with the Cubs, he was teamed for 14 years with former pitcher Steve Stone.

Caray was known for his unabashed homerism. While advertisers played up his habit of openly rooting for the Cubs from the booth (for example, one Budweiser ad described him as "Cub Fan, Bud Man" in a Blues Brothers-style parody of "Soul Man"), he had been even less restrained about rooting for the Cardinals when he broadcast for them. He said later that his firing from the Cardinals changed his outlook and made him realize that his passion was for the game itself, and the fans, more than anything else. He was also well known for his frequent exclamation of "Holy Cow!" As he noted in interviews and in his autobiography Holy Cow!, he trained himself to use this expression, to avoid any chance of using profanity on the air. Caray also avoided any risk of mis-calling a home run, using what became a trademark home run call: "It might be ... it could be ... it IS! A home run! Holy cow!" In Holy Cow!, Caray said he first used the "It might be ..." part of that expression on the air while covering a college baseball tournament in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in the early 1940s. He also said that was probably the first time he said "Holy cow!" on the air.

In 1987, the Cubs had Ryne Sandberg, Jim Sundberg, and Scott Sanderson on the roster. Caray had suffered a stroke in February and often confused these names and it was not uncommon for him to refer to "Jim Sandberg", "Ryne Sanderson", "Ryne Sandbag", or "Scott Sundberg." Caray was intrigued by unusual names, and one of his frequent on-air bits was to try to pronounce a multi-syllabic name backwards. This bit became more challenging for him in the 1987 season but he kept trying, even poking fun at himself. Two player names he took delight in pronouncing backwards were Toby Harrah and James "Truck' Hannah. Even short names sometimes amused him: once, when Manny Mota had just lined out to a Cardinals fielder who did not even need to move his feet to make the catch, Harry proclaimed: "'Mota' spelled backwards is 'atom' ... and that's where he hit it, right at 'im'!"

Caray had a reputation for mastering all aspects of broadcasting: writing his own copy, conducting news interviews, writing and presenting editorials, covering other sports such as University of Missouri football, and hosting a sports talk program.

Caray was considered a fan's broadcaster above all, along the lines of such announcers as New York/San Francisco Giants legend Russ Hodges or Pittsburgh Pirates legend Bob Prince, and that did not always earn him respect to equal his popularity. However, Caray never pretended to be the kind of objective announcer that such broadcasters as Red Barber and Vin Scully prided themselves on being regardless of their team attachments.

Non-baseball work

Though best known and honored for baseball work, Caray also called football (Missouri Tigers football), ice hockey (St. Louis Flyers), basketball (St. Louis Billikens, Boston Celtics and St. Louis Hawks) in the 1940s, 50s and '60s. Additionally, he broadcast eight Cotton Bowl Classic games (1958-64, 1966) on network radio.

Personal life

Caray was the uncle of actor Tim Dunigan known for playing many roles on both the screen and stage. His son Skip Caray followed him into the booth as a baseball broadcaster with the Atlanta Braves. Caray's broadcasting legacy was extended to a third-generation, as his grandson Chip Caray replaced Harry as the Cubs' play-by-play announcer from 1998 to 2004. Chip currently serves as the Braves television announcer on FOX Sports South.

On October 23, 1987, Harry Caray's Italian Steakhouse opened in the Chicago Varnish Company Building, a Chicago Landmark building that is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. There are now six restaurants and an off-premises catering division which bear the Harry Caray name.

Death

Caray maintained a winter home in Palm Springs, California, along with his primary residence in Chicago. As discussed in Steve Stone's 1999 book, Where's Harry?, Caray was at a Rancho Mirage restaurant on February 14, 1998, celebrating Valentine's Day with his wife Dutchie, when he collapsed, in the process allegedly hitting his head on the side of a restaurant table, and was rushed to nearby Eisenhower Medical Center. He never regained consciousness, dying of cardiac arrest with resulting brain damage four days later. Caray's funeral took place in downtown Chicago's Holy Name Cathedral on February 27, two days before he would have turned 84. Many celebrities and athletes were in attendance, including Sammy Sosa and former Chicago Bears head coach Mike Ditka.

Legacy

At his funeral, the organ played "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." Harry Caray's body is interred in All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines, Illinois.

Following his death, during the entire 1998 season the Cubs wore a patch on the sleeves of their uniforms depicting a caricature of Caray. Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa dedicated each of his 66 home runs that season to Caray.

Caray had five children, three with his first wife, Dorothy, and two with his second wife, Marian. He married his third wife Delores "Dutchie" (Goldmann) on May 19, 1975. His son Skip Caray followed him into the booth as a baseball broadcaster with the Atlanta Braves until his death on August 3, 2008. Caray's broadcasting legacy was extended to a third generation, as his grandson Chip Caray replaced Harry as the Cubs' play-by-play announcer from 1998 to 2004. Chip later returned to work with his father Skip on Atlanta Braves broadcasts, where he had worked for a while in the early 1990s.

In what Harry Caray said was one of his proudest moments, he worked some innings in the same broadcast booth with his son and grandson, during a Cubs/Braves game on May 13, 1991. On-air in a professional setting, the younger men would refer to their seniors by their first names. During 1998, Chip would refer to the departed Harry in third person as "Granddad". His half-brother Josh is a broadcaster and producer for WLAQ radio in Rome, Georgia, calling the Class A Rome Braves baseball and Rome High School football.

Honors and special events

The National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association named Caray as Missouri Sportscaster of the Year twice (1959, 1960) and Illinois Sportscaster of the Year 10 times (1971-73, 75-78, 83-85), and inducted him into its NSSA Hall of Fame in 1988.

In 1989, the Baseball Hall of Fame presented Caray with the Ford C. Frick Award for "major contributions to baseball." That same year, he was inducted into the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1990, and has his own star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

On June 24, 1994, the Chicago Cubs had a special day honoring Harry for 50 years of broadcasting Major League Baseball. Sponsored by the Cubs and Kemper Insurance, pins were given out to some unknown number of fans in attendance that day. The pins had a picture of Harry, with writing saying "HARRY CARAY, 50 YEARS BROADCASTING, Kemper MUTUAL FUNDS" and "HOLY COW."

In 1994, Caray was the radio inductee into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame.

Caray's style became fodder for pop culture parody as well, including a memorable Saturday Night Live recurring sketch featuring Caray (played by Will Ferrell) in various Weekend Update segments opposite Norm MacDonald and Colin Quinn. Caray would frequently abandon the topic he was supposed to be talking about and would drift into hypothetical topics like whether or not they would eat the moon if it were made of spare ribs and turning hot dogs into currency (20 hot dogs would equal roughly a nickel, depending on the strength of the yen). The sketch continued after Caray's death. When asked by Norm MacDonald about his death, Will Ferrell as Caray replied, "What's your point?" The Bob and Tom Show also had a Harry Caray parody show called "After Hours Sports", which eventually became "Afterlife Sports" after Caray's death, and the Heaven and Hell Baseball Game, in which Caray is the broadcast announcer for the games. On the Nickelodeon series Back at the Barnyard, news reporter Hilly Burford bears a strong resemblance to Caray, both in appearance and speech. In 2005, the cartoon Codename: Kids Next Door had two announcers reporting a baseball game. One was a parody of Caray, the other, Howard Cosell. Another Caray impersonation was done by Chicago radio personality Jim Volkman, heard most often on the Loop and AM1000. Also, comedian Artie Lange, in his standup, talks about Caray.

Caray can be briefly heard in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off, as a Cubs game is shown on a TV in a pizza parlor.

In 2008, a series of Chicago-area TV and radio ads for AT&T's Advanced TV featured comedian John Caponera impersonating the post-stroke version of Harry Caray. However, AT&T soon withdrew the spots following widespread criticism and a complaint by Caray's widow.

Ryan Dempster, former Chicago Cubs pitcher, is known for his Harry Caray impression, most notably, he announced the Cubs' starting lineup while speaking like the post-stroke version of Caray before a nationally televised baseball game on Fox Sports. Dempster led the stadium in singing 'Take Me Out To The Ballgame' in July 2016, dressed as Caray, including oversized glasses and wig.

Atlanta Braves pitcher Will Ohman performed a Harry Caray impersonation when announcing the starting lineup for the Atlanta Braves during a Fox Game of the Week in 2008.

In 1988, Vess Beverage Inc. released and sold a Harry Caray signature soda, under the brand "Holy Cow", complete with his picture on every can.