It’s official: Chip Caray leaves Braves for Cardinals

Chip Caray, the television play-by-play broadcaster of the Braves on Bally Sports South and Bally Sports Southeast, has left to take a similar position with the Cardinals. (AJC file photo)

Credit: AJC file photo

Credit: AJC file photo

Chip Caray, the television play-by-play broadcaster of the Braves on Bally Sports South and Bally Sports Southeast, has left to take a similar position with the Cardinals. (AJC file photo)

Chip Caray, the television play-by-play broadcaster of the Braves on Bally Sports South and Bally Sports Southeast, has left to take a similar position with the Cardinals.

Caray will replace Dan McLaughlin, who resigned in December following his third arrest for suspicion of drunken driving earlier in the month. McLaughlin, a St. Louis native, served as the play-by-play voice of the Cardinals for the previous 24 seasons.

Last year, Caray completed his 18th season calling Braves games as the play-by-play broadcaster.

Caray, 57, has broadcast Braves games since 2010 at Fox Sports South and SportSouth and, now, Bally. He also broadcast Braves games from 1991-92 on TBS and the Braves Radio Network and from 2005-09 on TBS, Peachtree TV and the Atlanta Braves Radio Network.

Caray, a 1987 graduate of the University of Georgia, was also the play-by-play announcer for Cubs games on WGN-TV from 1998-2004.

Sports broadcasting has been the family business for the Carays. His father, Skip, and grandfather, Harry, both worked as play-by-play announcers. Harry spent 53 seasons as a big-league broadcaster, including stints with the Cardinals, White Sox and Cubs. Skip was a longtime Braves broadcaster who called Hawks games before that.

The Carays recently added a fourth generation to baseball, when Chip’s sons, identical twin brothers Chris and Stefan Caray, worked as the radio announcers for the Double-A Amarillo (Texas) Sod Poodles.

Currently, Ben Ingram and Joe Simpson are the Braves’ primary radio broadcasters. Simpson is a member of the Braves Hall of Fame, while Ingram was recently named Sportscaster of the Year in Georgia.

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