The day had reached that awkward point, when the service was over and the crowd — Skip Caray's friends, co-workers, young Braves, old Braves, his old running mates — just did not want to go home. Not yet.

Lingering against a stone wall near the main entrance of Christ the King Cathedral Monday evening, Rick Camp took it all in. A nine-year pitcher with the Braves, he broke in the same year Caray had (1976) and just as everyone who attended Caray's memorial service had their own reasons for being there, so did Camp.

Ben Gray/bgray@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

Along with current Braves (Jeff Francoeur, left) former players, like Otis Nixon (right), paid respects to longtime broadcaster Skip Caray.

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"He was a great friend forever," Camp said. "He stuck with me through some tough times. He came and visited me in prison. He wrote me letters.

"To speak of him, he'd be first class."

It was a remarkable group that assembled for the Caray memorial mass, representing four decades of Atlanta sports and media and charity, the places where Skip Caray plied his trade. Old TBS executives, retired news anchors and just plain people milled about.

Like Elaine Moryc, a Sandy Springs realtor who took time from work for the service. A transplanted Detroiter, she was transformed into a Braves fan with nightly radio doses from Caray.

"He was like a member of the team," she said, "without a uniform."

But no one in the congregation had a Caray story like Camp's. Convicted of federal money laundering charges in 2005, he spent two years at Montgomery (Ala.) Federal Prison. He was only paroled last October. Caray, first with a letter and then with personal visits, had been one of the few people to stay in contact with him.

"When you go to prison, you can put your friends on about one hand," Camp said. "You get in a situation like that, these guys over here will fade away real quick. But then you got your real friends like Skip Caray ... I had five, six guys I could depend on and come and see me. It's different. It's totally different."

It was different, too, for Bill Bartholomay, the Braves chairman emeritus, who flew in from Chicago for the service. It was Bartholomay and then-broadcaster Ernie Johnson Sr. who had recruited Caray to the Braves.

"Skip was great," Bartholomay said. "He sold a lot of tickets for us. A lot more than I ever did."

A line of six television remote trucks lined the north side of Peachtree Way. The place was thick with former Braves. Otis Nixon was there. Charlie Leibrandt and Leo Mazzone, too.

Alex Hawkins, the one-time Falcons receiver, traveled from his home in South Carolina. Now 71, he and Caray called some Falcon preseason games on television after Hawkins' retirement in 1968.

"Well, it's the end of an era, isn't it?" he said.

The crowd had begun to form more than two hours before the service. Howard Feinberg, a director for Braves broadcasts, and Ashley Kirbas, who handles graphics, arrived so early, another ceremony was still underway inside.

Feinberg remembered having dinner in the press box with Caray before what would be his last game.

"The great thing was, we barely talked about work or baseball," he said. "We talked about our dogs and our kids, like we always did."

The mass, which lasted for an hour and 45 minutes, was delayed for 10 minutes because the bus bringing the Braves was delayed in rush hour traffic. And that fact that Caray, among his long-held professional gripes, abhorred games which started after their scheduled times was not lost upon his friends.

"I know how he would have taken it," said 33-year broadcast partner Pete Van Wieren, his grin broadening. "He would have said, 'Just play the game!' "

For those last awkward moments outside the cathedral, that's just what his friends did.