It was the conclusion of a long night at the ballpark for Chip Caray as he rode home on the highway alongside his father. The Braves had won their game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on a walk-off home run, and Chip heard the voice of his father, Skip, both in the booth and later on the radio. While the moment may seem trivial at first glance, it turns out that was the moment when Chip distinctly recalls feeling exhorted to pursue sports media as a career. He remembers saying to his father that he wanted to call baseball games, an assertion to which he received no reply, as his father chose to keep his eyes fixed on the road after a long day’s work.
“We drove home in silence,” Caray recalls. “We sat down at his house at 1:00 in the morning, [and] he poured himself a cocktail [while] I had a bite to eat. He said, ‘Were you serious about what you said in the car?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Okay, we start tomorrow.’”
Despite the profession being firmly ingrained into his genealogy, Caray was never completely certain he would follow the lead of his father. After all, Skip had divorced his wife when Chip was young, and aside from occasional summer visitations, the two did not have the opportunity to bond. Chip knew of his father by watching him call games on TBS when the Braves played on the West Coast. Similarly, Chip never had a bonafide opportunity to connect with his grandfather, the legendary WGN broadcaster, Harry Caray.
Chip Caray’s life has come full circle. He recently returned to his hometown as the new television voice of the St. Louis Cardinals. The path to get there, however, practically took him from coast to coast, and it was filled with memorable moments, fortuitous breaks and unparalleled excitement. His inability to hit a curveball motivated him to find another path to make it to the majors, and now he has become a fixture on the soundtrack of summer.
“Like most of us who sit in our chairs, we all dreamed of being the guys between the white lines, but our physical abilities did not match our dreams,” Caray said, “I figured, ‘If I can’t play baseball, this is kind of a cool way to stay involved in the game.’”
Moving home to St. Louis and being the television play-by-play announcer for the Cardinals was always an aspiration, but not something he thought of as being entirely probable. His grandfather had been fired from that very same role in 1969, a decision the team’s ownership entity Amheuser-Busch claimed was based on a recommendation it received from its marketing division. Chip Caray, whose legal name is Harry Caray III, had been offered the job 32 years ago, but circumstances changed and Caray turned down the chance.
Chip Caray was one of the few University of Georgia graduates who secured a job right out of college. It was on WMBB Channel 13 in Panama City Beach reporting on not only sports, but also news and weather.
Caray was a beat reporter on news occurring on the beach, meaning that he was often in scorching heat with a 60-pound camera, a 25-pound tripod and a 30-pound tape deck in a coat and tie. The days were long and it was out of his comfort zone. He eventually became used to it and ultimately grew more versatile as a broadcaster. On weekends, he anchored sports for the station and felt like he had a head start thanks to the tutelage of his father, interest in the craft and experience gathered through internships.
After nearly six months in Panama City Beach, Caray’s demo tape got into the hands of management at WFMY Channel 2 in Greensboro, NC. The station hired him in early 1988. The area had a litany of ACC sports teams and hosted the ACC men’s basketball tournament each year, along with the Wyndham Golf Championship on the PGA Tour and NASCAR races in nearby Martinsville.
The timing worked out for Caray because of the introduction of the Charlotte Hornets as an expansion franchise that fall, giving him the ability to attend and cover NBA games along with local high school basketball and football contests.
“That was really an entree to me in going from college to a small station where you just did a few things that were kind of cool, to a very competitive news and content-driven, fast-paced business where you’re one step away [from] being around the big leagues,” Caray said. “That just opened my eyes to basketball and pro sports in particular as someone who is on the air and not just working behind the camera.”
The National Basketball Association continued its expansion era the next year, welcoming the Minnesota Timberwolves and Orlando Magic into the league. Pat Williams, who had worked in various areas of sports management, helped Jim Hewitt and his investment group win a spot in the league, and was named as the franchise’s first manager. Williams had previously worked with Caray’s father and knew the work of his grandfather, and made the decision to invite Chip to travel to Orlando, Fla. and discuss the job. Before he was hired by Williams to be the team’s first television broadcaster, Caray embarked on calling an eight-game round-robin basketball tournament alongside NBC Sports analyst Bucky Waters.
“It was basically a live audition to see if I could do it,” Caray said. “Bucky Waters said, ‘Well that was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed working with you. How many years have you done basketball because I haven’t run into yet?’ I winked and nodded and gave him kind of a sheepish grin and said, ‘Well, actually Mr. Waters, these are the first eight games I’ve ever done.’ His jaw dropped, and I started laughing.”
Caray was initially awful at calling Magic games amid an 18-win season. Much like Caray, the team quickly improved, thanks in part to the development of Shaquille O’Neal, Horace Grant and Penny Hardaway, and qualified for the playoffs for four consecutive seasons. Nonetheless, Caray had promptly landed a heralded position as a broadcaster and enjoyed surprising his father with the news.
Caray enjoyed his time calling basketball games, but worked to find a way to make it to Major League Baseball. Following a year of calling Class AA Orlando baseball, Caray was added to the Atlanta Braves radio broadcast team, giving him a chance to work with his father for the first time. In May 1991, Chip, Skip and Harry called a game between the Chicago Cubs and the Atlanta Braves from the press box at Wrigley Field, marking the first time three generations of a family all broadcast the same game.
While Harry was calling the game over WGN both on television and on the radio, Skip and Chip were broadcast on TBS and WSB Radio respectively, and the circumstance caught the allure of baseball fans and reporters alike. The family all met at Harry Caray’s home to have dinner the night before the game, and went to one of his restaurants in Chicago following the game to reminisce on what they had just achieved. The Braves ended up defeating the Cubs by a final score of 5-3, but it was evident the outcome of the matchup did not matter as much as it normally would to Chip, even though he states that he did not appreciate the moment as much as he should have.
“For my dad, I think it was great because his son followed in his footsteps [in] trying to make his own way,” Caray said. “It was very difficult having the same name and all. Seeing the pride that Harry had for the first time [and] being honored for being a patriarch more than a Hall of Fame broadcaster was really kind of cool. It went by in a blur.”
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He continued his rise in the industry when he was named the play-by-play announcer for the Seattle Mariners in 1993, and he performed the role for select games since he still lived in Orlando. Each year, there were several occurrences when Caray would fly from Orlando to Seattle, call a Mariners game and then return on a red-eye flight that night. He immensely enjoyed his time working with Dave Niehaus, the famed voice of the Mariners. Additionally, the move allowed Chip to establish a voice for himself on the other side of the country and watch the play of stars including Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson and Jay Buhner.
“From a professional standpoint, it was one of the best things I ever did,” Caray said. “It allowed me to get out from under the shadow of my dad – and I mean that in the most loving of ways – because our business is a personality-driven one. I had to go figure out who I was and who I wasn’t on my own.”
Niehaus taught Caray the importance of preparation, but in the broader sense of the term. Although it is necessary to know about the athletes, their backgrounds and statistics, it is essential a broadcast team cultivates a working chemistry. While games usually attract viewers, sometimes it is the broadcasters who end up being the main attraction, especially for teams that are not expected to win.
Harry Caray was an ostensible part of that lure for Chicago Cubs fans, bringing his incomparable style and passion for the team to the North Side of Chicago. Chip Caray had just concluded his time broadcasting the Orlando Magic and was also working as a studio host and broadcaster for MLB on FOX games when he received the offer of a lifetime. It was not only a chance to call games for the Chicago Cubs, but to do it partnered with his grandfather, a man who Chip says “just wasn’t prepared or equipped to be a hands-on parent or grandparent.”
Much of the excitement about accepting the offer to join the Cubs was not only to hear his grandfather’s stories about watching Jackie Robinson and Stan Musial play; it was more about learning about the elder Caray’s life. He was curious to discover how his grandfather got involved in sports media, how he met his wife, what his father was like as a child, and the mistakes he made to improve as a broadcaster.
Harry Caray collapsed while enjoying a meal on Valentine’s Day at a restaurant with his wife. He was rushed to a nearby hospital and passed away four days later from complications due to a heart attack and accompanying brain damage. The outcome was devastating for Caray’s family, the Cubs organization and the sports world at large – and it redefined what Chip’s days with the Cubs would look like just days before the start of Spring Training in 1998.
“The reality of it hit me when I was going up the stairs to the press box,” Caray said. “I walked down the hallway past the place where the guy that plays the organ sat; and then the visiting GM booth, the visiting TV booth, the visiting radio booth;,and boom, there’s the TV booth.
“I turn left, open the door, the windows are open at Wrigley. There’s his booth, his seat, his microphone, his partner, his crew, his producer, his director, his team and his talent, and I’ve got to sit in that chair and try to find a way to make this my own thing on the fly. Obviously, it was an extremely emotional day not just for me, but for my entire family.”
The team ended up winning 90 games that season, highlighted by the outstanding play of outfielder Sammy Sosa, who hit 66 home runs, falling short in a legendary battle with the Cardinals’ Mark McGwire for the single season home run record. The adjustment period took time, and Caray is grateful for his partner Steve Stone and producer Arne Harris for showing him the ropes and helping him become acclimated to the sports climate of Chicago.
“You can’t understand the provincial nature of Chicago unless you’ve experienced it,” Caray said. “The White Sox fans hate you because you’re a Cubs fan and the Cubs fans don’t really pay a whole lot of attention to the White Sox fans because you work for the Cubs. Harry had worked in both places and in some corners, they thought he was a traitor for going to the Cubs. For me, it was really, really challenging to go from the understudy to all of a sudden, the guy who has to try to fill these unfillable shoes.”
After a six-year stint with the Cubs, Caray reunited with his father on TBS where he called baseball games at the national level and locally for the Atlanta Braves. In working with his father, Caray found that they had an instinctive chemistry, never once talking over one another in the broadcast booth. Whether it was traveling on the road or calling games at home, the time to bond with his father over their love of baseball was invaluable to Caray. In 2007, Skip began to experience health complications, and he ended up passing away in his sleep the next year in the midst of his 33rd season calling games.
“As a son in the latter years of his life quite obviously, there was nothing more rewarding for me than to go down to the lobby and pick up his suitcase or to bring him a cup of coffee or, after a game, have a drink with him as an adult,” Caray said. “The last month before he passed away, I’d take him to his doctor’s office visits and pick up his dry cleaning. All things that people that don’t do what we do probably take for granted.”
Indeed, Caray is fully aware that working in sports media takes sacrificing myriad irreplaceable moments with family and friends. It is part of the reason why he felt compelled to make the move home to St. Louis after broadcasting Braves games on Bally Sports South from 2010 until 2022.
He wishes the circumstances through which the job became available were different though, as longtime team broadcaster Dan McLaughlin had been placed on leave after his third arrest for driving while intoxicated and ultimately stepped away from the job.
Caray and McLaughlin are close friends and had discussed working together on St. Louis Cardinals broadcasters at one point in their careers. While it is entirely plausible that the pairing could one day happen, Caray knows that announcers are merely placeholders tasked with discerning and elaborately translating the action on the field into comprehensive statements.
Caray is in the midst of familiarizing himself with the St. Louis Cardinals and becoming a voice the fans know and trust, a task arguably made more difficult because of just how synonymous he was with the Braves. After all, he was the voice who called the career of Hall of Fame third baseman Chipper Jones, the team’s multiple division titles and journey to a World Series championship in 2021. Leaving all of that personal history was a particularly difficult decision. Atlanta had become home for Caray. In fact, he told people he intended to finish his career with the team.
The Cardinals job was in his hometown though, and it is a position his grandfather held over the span of 24 years. It was always intriguing for Chip, but he never thought it would be attainable. That made the job nearly impossible to pass up when it was offered to him.
“This is one of the prime, if not the best job in baseball,” Caray said. “I understand the culture; obviously my grandfather was there. If it wasn’t going to be Atlanta, what better place to go at my age and with my experience level and my family ties?”
Bally Sports Midwest is Caray’s new home, and he hopes St. Louis his final destination. He is not the only one keeping the Caray legacy alive in broadcasting though. He has identical twin sons Chris and Stefan. They are 22-years-old and calling games in Class AA with big league aspirations. There’s plenty of interest in baseball from his son Tristan and daughter Summerlyn too. The sport has truly become a family affair for the Carays and Chip cannot wait for the fourth generation to break into the show.
“This is a game that my grandfather fell in love with. Now I love it, my sons love it,” Caray said. “I have the love and support of my family…They let me chase my dream too, and in exchange, I’ve been able to provide a lifestyle beyond even our wildest dreams and for that, I’m proud.”
Derek Futterman is a contributing editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, find him on X @derekfutterman.
WBBM is the legendary Chicago radio and television callsign. In this story, your reference to Channel 13 in Panama City, Florida would be for WMBB.