Harry Christopher Caray (né Carabina; March 1, 1914 – February 18, 1998) was an American radio and television sportscaster. During his career he called the play-by-play for five Major League Baseball teams, beginning with 25 years of calling the games of the St. Louis Cardinals (with two of those years also spent calling games for the St. Louis Browns). After a year working for the Oakland Athletics and 11 years with the Chicago White Sox, Caray spent the last 16 years of his career as the announcer for the Chicago Cubs.
Caray was born Harry Christopher Carabina to an Italian father and Romanian mother in St. Louis. He was 14 when his mother, Daisy Argint, died from complications due to pneumonia. Caray did not have much recollection of his father, who went off to fight in World War I. Caray went to live with his uncle John Argint and Aunt Doxie at 1909 LaSalle Avenue. Caray attended high school at Webster Groves High School. In his youth, Caray was a talented baseball player, and was offered a roster spot by the University of Alabama. Due to financial woes, Caray could not accept. Caray then tried to enlist into the Armed Forces, but was denied due to his poor eyesight. Unable to play baseball professionally, he sold gym equipment before investigating announcing as a way to stay involved in the game. 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.
St. Louis Cardinals and Browns
Caray caught his break when he landed a job with the National League St. Louis Cardinals in 1945 and, according to several histories of the franchise, proved as adept at selling the sponsor's beer as at the play-by-play description. Caray teamed with former major-league catcher Gabby Street to call Cardinals games through 1950, as well as those of the American League St. Louis Browns in 1945 and 1946. His subsequent partners in the Cardinals' booth included Stretch Miller, Gus Mancuso, Milo Hamilton, Joe Garagiola, and Jack Buck.
Immediately preceding the Cardinals job, Caray announced hockey games for the St. Louis Flyers, teaming with former NHL defenseman Ralph "Bouncer" Taylor. Caray was also seen as influential enough that he could affect team personnel moves; Peter Golenbock (in The Spirit of St. Louis: A History of the St. Louis Cardinals and Browns) has suggested that Caray may have had a partial involvement 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, 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 did not want to be involved in Keane's dismissal. As the Cardinals' announcer, Caray helped broadcast three World Series (1964, 1967, and 1968) on NBC. He also broadcast the 1957 All-Star Game (played in St. Louis) on NBC Radio, and had the call for Stan Musial's 3,000th hit on May 13, 1958.
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. Gussie Busch, the Cardinals' president and then-CEO of team owners Anheuser-Busch, spent lavishly to ensure Caray recovered, flying him on the company's planes to a company facility in Florida to rehabilitate and recuperate. On Opening Day, fans cheered when he dramatically threw aside the two canes he had been using to cross the field and continued to the broadcast booth under his own power.
Following the 1969 season, the Cardinals declined to renew Caray's contract after he had called their games for 25 seasons, his longest tenure with any sports team. The team stated that the action had been taken on the recommendation of Anheuser-Busch's marketing department, but declined to offer specifics. At a news conference afterward, during which he drank conspicuously from a can of Schlitz (then a major competitor to Anheuser-Busch), Caray dismissed that claim, saying no one was better at selling beer than he had been. Instead, he suggested, he had been the victim of rumors that he'd had an affair with Gussie Busch's daughter-in-law.
He spent one season broadcasting for the Oakland 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 "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.
Coincidentally, 54 years after that season, his great-grandson Chris would become a broadcaster for the club.
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 shirtless from the bleachers). He wasn't always popular with players, however, as Caray also had a reputation for being critical of home team blunders. 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.
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 Chicago Cubs for the 1982 season.
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.