Skip Caray

Harry Christopher Caray, Jr.
(Skip)

• School University of Missouri
• Born August 12, 1939 in St. Louis, MO USA
• Died August 3, 2008 in Atlanta, GA USA

Biographical Information

Broadcaster Skip Caray is the son of Harry Caray and father of Chip Caray.

He was the long-time broadcaster of the Atlanta Braves, partnering with Pete Van Wieren for 33 years. He was known for a very dry wit.

After beginning his career calling high school sports from beneath his father's looming shadow at KMOX in St Louis, Caray spent summers with the Tulsa Oilers, then a Cardinals farm team, beginning in 1963. In the mid-1960s he was his father's color commentator on University of Missouri football games, and was hired by the St Louis Hawks basketball team in 1967, moving with them to Atlanta in 1968 where they became the Atlanta Hawks (his father had already moved on to Oakland at that point). Caray was first hired by Turner Broadcasting in 1972 to continue as the Hawks' broadcaster; he was then hired to serve as radio and television play-by-play broadcaster for the baseball Braves beginning with the 1976 season.

Both the Braves and Hawks were carried nationally over the WTBS superstation, and with these clubs Caray developed a national following through the late 1970s and 1980s, while locally providing play for the soon-to-depart Atlanta Flames NHL team on occasion. Beginning in the early 1990s, he focused exclusively on baseball, although he also called TNT's Sunday Night Football in 1990 and 1991. In 2000, Caray broadcast baseball post-season games for NBC.

Caray continued to call Braves games until the week of his death. Although he was in ill health and he reduced his workload to just home games, Caray called his last game on July 31, 2008.

Caray was renowned for an easy rapport with his partners, notably Van Wieren, who was hired by Atlanta the same year as he had been. The two spent relatively little time sharing a booth, however, as each has tended to be paired with a separate partner, the two teams splitting a broadcast between the radio and television sides. Joining Caray and Van Wieren at various times over the years have been incumbent Ernie Johnson (Braves tenure 1962-1998), Don Sutton (1989-2006), Joe Simpson (1992-present), John Sterling (1983-1987), Ron Gant (2003-2008), Dave O'Brien (1991), Billy Sample (1988) and, Skip's son and Harry's grandson, Chip Caray.

Skip Caray was the recipient of six "Georgia Sportscaster of the Year" Awards and a graduate with honors of the University of Missouri.

Caray was an announcer for the Braves in the 1985 movie The Slugger's Wife.

Further Reading

• Pete Van Wieren: "Remembering Skip", in Ken Fenster and Wynn Montgomery, eds: Baseball in the Peach State, The National Pastime, SABR, Volume 40 (2010), pp. 5-7.

Related Sites

• Skip Caray at the SABR Bio Project