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Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > August > 03
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Skip Caray did it his way
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Skip Caray was to Atlanta professional sports what Larry Munson is to the Georgia Bulldogs — the voice and the conscience, the history and the hilarity. Skip told us what was happening, yes, but Skip also told us what Skip made of what was happening, and over the course of four decades Skip’s prism became ours.
He came here with the Hawks, and he became part of our extended family — a crusty uncle, if you will — through his work with the Braves. The SuperStation beamed his imperfect voice from sea to shining sea, and though there were always others alongside — the Professor and Ernie at the beginning, Don and Joe later on — Skip was the one we thought we knew best. He was the funny one, the snarky one. He was Harry Caray’s son and Chip Caray’s dad, but somehow he was always just Skip.
As Munson is to worry, Skip was to grousing. He wasn’t from the neo-announcer’s school of happy talk. Skip hated the Wave and the Infield-Fly Rule and said as much at every opportunity. When he did a call-in show on WSB in the ’80s, he suffered clever callers only grudgingly and the bozos not at all. But because he was Skip, we didn’t much mind.
Indeed, that was the beauty (and the incongruity) of Skip Caray: In an industry predicated on likeability, he really didn’t care if you liked him or not. He said what he thought — near the end of a lopsided game, he famously intoned: “If you promise to patronize our sponsors, you have permission to go walk the dog” — and if he happened to ruffle the tender sensibilities of listeners or management … well, tough.
Naturally, this made us like him all the more. The audience doesn’t mind if you’re a homer — truth to tell, Skip wasn’t much of one — but it hates a house man. Skip was the antithesis of that. He was the irreverent David Letterman when the real Letterman was still doing the weather back in Indianapolis. He was laugh-out-loud funny without ever once laughing at his own joke.
Sometimes the sarcasm got a tad thick. (When paired, he and Sutton seemed to care more about wisecracking than calling the game.) But Skip and Joe worked nicely together, and Skip and Pete were simply the best — Van Wieren would give us the numbers, and Skip would supply the attitude. Whether the year was 1982 or 2008, hearing those two voices made us feel a part of something that transcended beginnings and endings, something that always was and always would be.
But now the signature voice has been forever muted. No more, “Listen to this crowd!” No more, “There’s a drive …” No more choppers to Chipper. No more promos for “the award-winning Bobby Cox Show.” No more fans battling for the souvenir. No more gags. No more puns. Braves baseball will go on, but Braves baseball will never be the same.
Those who knew Skip were aware that his health had declined these past few years. There were nights this spring when you weren’t sure the halting voice would last through the next half-inning, and there were moments when you wondered if it mightn’t be better if Skip just hung it up. And then you answered your own question: No, it wouldn’t have been, because there was just one Skip, one cuddly curmudgeon, and when this one was gone there’d never be another.
The one and only Skip Caray died in his sleep Sunday. Ennobled by his life, we are, all of us, lessened by his passing. Feel free to shed a tear, to say a prayer, to smile over a remembered Skip-ism. But please, whatever you do, don’t start the Wave.
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