It saddens me to announce that longtime Atlanta Braves announcer Skip Caray has died. He was 68.
The son of famous Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray, Skip began his broadcasting career announcing basketball games for Saint Louis University and the St. Louis Hawks. When the Hawks moved to Atlanta, Skip went with them. He would later join the Atlanta Braves broadcast team in 1976, and Carey and sidekick Pete Van Wieren would go on to become Atlanta legends.
Caray was famous (some might say “infamous”) for his witty, irreverent and sometimes sarcastic announcing style. In the late 70s and early 80s – the low point for the Atlanta Braves, when attendance could often be measured in the low hundreds – Caray would often tell listeners that the game was hopeless, and that as long as they pledged to patronize the sponsors, it was OK for listeners to turn off their radios. During an especially bad run for the Braves in the 80s, Caray once began a game with the infamous line “… and, like lambs to the slaughter, the Braves take the field”. Caray once got into an infamous feud with Atlanta Journal columnist Ron Hudspeth, which ultimately led to Caray hiring an airplane to circle Atlanta Fulton County Stadium; the airplane towed a banner which read “For a good time, call Ron Hudspeth at…” followed by Hudspeth’s actual phone number. If a day game ran long, Caray would often give “traffic reports”, in which he would make up off the top of his head. During pre-game call-in shows, Caray was also famous for giving sarcastic answers to caller’s baseball questions, and would often cut off the call entirely if he deemed the question to be “too basic”.
But Caray wasn’t always “piss and vinegar”. Some of the Braves’ best moments were captured by Caray, such as his famous call in the 1992 NLCS, where the Braves defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates in Game 7 (with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th, no less):
A lotta room in right-center, if he hits one there we can dance in the streets. The 2-1… Swung, line drive left field! One run is in! Here comes Bream! Here’s the throw to the plate! He is……. safe! Braves win! Braves win! Braves win! Braves win! Braves win! They may have to hospitalize Sid Bream; he’s down at the bottom of a huge pile at the plate. They help him to his feet. Frank Cabrera got the game winner! The Atlanta Braves are National League champions again! This crowd is going berserk, listen!
[audio:braves.mp3]
And then there was the 1995 World Series:
Mark gets the sign, the wind and the pitch here it is… swung, fly ball deep left center, Grissom on the run… Yes! Yes! Yes! The Atlanta Braves have given you a championship! Listen to this crowd! A mob scene on the field. Wohlers gets ’em one, two, three. A couple of fans rushing on the field. The Atlanta Braves have brought the first championship to Atlanta!
Rest in peace Skip! I have no doubt that “it’s cocktail hour” wherever you are right now! As a poster said in a Georgia Tech message board… “We lost a legend today. I only hope St. Peter didn’t ask him how to compute slugging percentage”!
More great lines from Skip:
“The bases are loaded and I wish I was.”
“The reported attendance is 38,000 and most of them must have come dressed as empty seats.”
When a Hispanic Braves pitcher was struggling and Bobby came to the mound, Pete said “Bobby’s coming to the mound. Edgar Renteria is coming over as well, presumably to translate.” Skip said “Shouldn’t be much to translate: ‘throw el ball over el plato.”
“He scattered 17 hits over five and two-thirds innings.”
“…….and here we are at the bottom of another fifth….”
About Alejandro Pena: “He even stands slow”
“Its 15-2 here in the bottom of the ninth, and lets go get em, Braves”
“Johnson from fifteen, shoots it fourteen.”
“The Hawks couldn’t throw one in the ocean”
During a day game: “Well Pete, it looks like a lot of guys brought their granddaughters to the game today.”
“He’d make coffee nervous”.
Bill Hartman, my least favorite sportscaster ever, had a pretty poignant line on Atlanta news last night about Skip that went something like this:
“It was summertime, it was baseball, and all was right with the world.”
Don’t foget how Skip would make fun of whatever was coming up next on TBS: “And what academy award winning movie will Turner give us after the game, Pete?”
I also loved how Skip would make up locations for poeple that caufght foul balls: “And that one sails out of bounds, caufght by a young boy from Peachtree City…”
I’ll miss Skip too!
I miss Skip already! 🙁
great post. keep it up thanks so much!