Early Life and Career
Skip Caray grew up in baseball as the son of Hall of Fame broadcaster Harry Caray, who would routinely refer to his son at 8:30pm during every broadcast by saying, "Good night, Skippy," a phrase for which Skip was teased throughout his adolescence.
He studied television and radio at the University of Missouri where he received a degree in journalism. He began his career in St. Louis calling Saint Louis University and St. Louis Hawks basketball. In 1968, Caray moved with the Hawks to Atlanta, where he also called Atlanta Flames hockey games.
Atlanta Braves
In 1976, he was added to the broadcast team for the Braves, a position he held until his death. In September 2007, Caray was not asked to announce League Division Series games on TBS and was kept exclusive to the Braves as the team's broadcasts moved to local Atlanta network Peachtree TV (a direct descendant of the original WTBS). Caray felt slighted by the move.
Skip Caray was inducted into the Atlanta Braves Hall of Fame in 2004 alongside long time Braves broadcaster Pete Van Wieren. He has been recognized with six Georgia Sportscaster-of-the Year awards from the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association, as well as a Georgia-area Emmy award.
On December 18, 2006, the Braves organization announced that Caray (and partner Van Wieren) had signed three year contracts to continue doing Braves game broadcasts on their radio network. However, Caray only announced ten games on TBS in the 2007 season before being relegated to Peachtree TV
On the final broadcast of Braves TBS Baseball (September 30, 2007), Carey thanked fans saying, "To all you people who have watched the Braves for these 30 years ... thank you. We appreciate you more than you will ever know. ... Thank you folks and God bless you. And we're going to miss you every bit as much as you miss us."
Broadcasting Style
Skip Caray's broadcasts were characterized by his witty and sarcastic sense of humor, a personality trait that endeared him to most fans, but alienated him from some. For example, during a particularly long losing streak in the 1980s, Skip declared at the start of a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, "And, like lambs to the slaughter, the Braves take the field" More recently, in a game against the Florida Marlins, the Braves had loaded the bases, to which Caray quipped, "The bases are loaded, just like (Marlins manager) Jack McKeon probably wishes he was." During the 2004 season, Caray frequently made fun of Braves relief pitcher, Jung Bong, declaring every time the opposing team got a hit against him, "that's another hit off of Bong". In 2008, a player popped a fly ball so high that Skip said "That wouldnt've been a home run in a phone booth." Other frequent targets of Skip's jokes included the Montreal Expos' mascot Youppi, New York Mets fans, professional wrestling, TBS baseball broadcast producer Glenn Diamond, and the post game B-movie frequently shown on TBS during the 1980s In one celebrated instance, in order to get back at Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Ron Hudspeth for a critical column, Caray paid to have an airplane tow a banner above Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium during a Braves game which read, "For a good time, call Rona Hudspeth," and included Ron's actual phone number.
Among other memorable lines, Caray said of Braves pitcher Charlie Kerfeld, who was 6'4" and 245 lbs., "Boy, he is big enough to go to work." And during a losing streak, after talking about a promotion in which Braves fans could come on the field and meet the players, Caray commented, "The way things are going, we may make the fans go through a metal detector on the way to the field."
Skip was also known for his tendency to identify the hometowns of fans who catch foul balls during Braves games in jest. Fans who reside in the metro Atlanta area were identified by a random suburb, though there was no legitimacy behind these references. Similarly, when daytime home games went long, Caray would routinely give a "traffic report" at exactly 5 o'clock on radio broadcasts. It consisted of him rattling off a random list of major Atlanta arteries, and describing each one as hopelessly backed up.
In addition to his play-by-play duties, Caray also hosted a pre-game call in show, until 2004, during which he was notorious for insulting on-air fans with curt and sarcastic responses, particularly when asked baseball questions of the simplest order, such as "how do you calculate E.R.A.?" or "could you please explain the infield fly rule?"Judging from his words over the air, Caray had a distaste for the sports entertainment empires ESPN and FOX.Skip Caray's rather distinctive nasal voice has been parodied by former SportsCenter anchor Rich Eisen during highlights for Atlanta Braves games.
Death
On August 3, 2008, the Atlanta Braves announced that Caray had died. His wife, Paula, reported to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that on Sunday afternoon when she thought her husband was napping, she looked out the window and saw a bird feeder not hanging where it should be and thought it had been blown down by the wind. When she stood up, she noticed her husband lying on the ground next to the bird feeder. He had been suffering from failing health for nearly a year prior, but returned to work for the 2008 season, calling a game on radio as recently as 3 days before his death. Tributes to Caray were given on all of the Atlanta television stations that evening and on WGST-AM the next morning.
Shortly after Caray's death, the Atlanta Braves began wearing a memorial patch on their uniforms that read "SKIP", which appeared on the sleeve opposite the "BEACH" patch honoring Jim Beauchamp that they had been wearing since the beginning of the 2008 season.