The son of beloved Cardinals, White Sox and Cubs announcer Harry Caray, Skip developed a style all his own, quite unlike his bombastic father. His sharp, dry wit livened up the Braves games in the 70s and 80s, when they were mostly mediocre or outright awful, long before the 14-year run of division championships that began in 1991.
Now, hopefully, he will get his just due and be given the Ford Frick Award and placed in the Hall Fame. He will be missed by all who love baseball.
3 comments:
Gene Stallings son died over the weekend as well LWC. He had downs syndrome. He was always on the field with his dad at Busch and down in Tuscaloosa.
I'm a Cards girl with Jack Buck making life bearable.
BUT...
Skip was cool. A smooth voice and a great understanding of the game.
He will be missed.
One game years ago when Skip had to read some God-stupid promo from TBS or another Ted network, he literally began with an unseen, but quite real facetitious "bulletin, bulletin," and went from there. His tone of voice was "You've got to be kidding me," and the promotion was out of place at a baseball game, but Skip made it hilarious.
In a Auburn versus Kentucky college basketball game from the early 1980s, Skip watched the UK guards shoot brick after brick after brick, making it possible for the shorter Auburn team to surround the much taller Kentucky inside players and eventually win the game. In one instance when--I think--Jim Masters missed a shot from about ten feet, Skip breathlessly proclaimed "and the guards still can't throw it in the ocean" in between calling the action. Not the words so much, but the breathless exuberance and spontaneity of Skip's comment there made it equally hilarious. We all knew Skip was commenting on Joe B. Hall's coaching acumen when he referred the UK team not being able to hit wide-open ten footers (hell, in those days, I could have shot better than anyone on UK's team). Even as I don't watch much Braves baseball any longer, I shall miss Skop a great deal. Maybe the folks at Ted Field ought to put a Skip statue outside much as the Cubs did for Harry.
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