Title/Author:
“The Legendary Harry
Caray: Baseball’s Greatest Salesman” by Don Zminda
Tags:
Baseball,
broadcasting, biography, Cardinals, White Sox, Cubs
Publish date:
April
12, 2019
Length:
352
pages
Rating:
5 of 5
stars (outstanding)
Review:
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Harry Caray is one
of the most famous broadcasters in baseball history. His lengthy career includes significant
time as the lead announcer for three franchises – the St. Louis Cardinals,
Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs.
While Caray is best known and most popular for his time with the Cubs,
this biography of the broadcasting legend covers his entire career thoroughly
for each team as well as his early life.
Born Harry Christopher
Carabina, Caray was raised in a modest manner in St. Louis with his siblings by
his mother Daisy until she died of pneumonia when Harry was 14. He was also a
good baseball player, which is covered in this book as well as his
broadcasting ability. When he couldn’t accept a spot on the baseball team at
the University of Alabama, he tried to enlist in the armed forces to serve in
World War II. Due to poor eyesight, he was rejected but this led to his
turning to baseball broadcasting.
Once Caray turned to
broadcasting, both his life and the book were much more interesting. His break came when he was hired to do the
games for the St. Louis Cardinals. He was already broadcasting in St. Louis
as he was covering minor league hockey games, but his love of baseball and
skill at keeping the attention of listeners made the Cardinals want to keep
him for many years. The radio network
for the Cardinals, led by 50,000 watt station KMOX, grew exponentially during
Caray’s time in St. Louis and the author, Don Zminda, writes that a lot of
credit was given to Caray for this growth.
Most of his years in
St. Louis, which also included two years of broadcasting the St. Louis
Browns, he worked with former catcher Gabby Street. While he rarely had a negative thought
about Street, the same cannot be said for many of Caray’s future broadcasting
partners. The book covers many of these strained working relationships which
included other legendary baseball broadcasters such as Jack Buck, Milo
Hamilton and later with the White Sox, Jimmy Piersall. Most of these
relationships were later repaired to the point where everyone but Hamilton
had much praise for Caray.
In a dispute that
never was fully explained nor understood, including in the book, Caray left
the Cardinals in 1970. He did radio
work for the Oakland Athletics for one year before joining the Chicago White
Sox, a gig he held for 11 years. His
time with the White Sox was marked by growing popularity with the fans and in
turn, the White Sox, who were on the verge of moving, became more popular
with the city’s South Side residents.
Like in St. Louis, much of this popularity is given to Caray and the
author again gives a complete and balanced account of this opinion. The book
also discusses in great detail his harsh criticism of White Sox players such
as Bill Melton. This is another aspect
of Caray’s career in which I believed Zminda handled fairly and in a balanced
manner.
However, Caray’s
legendary status was cemented when he joined the Cubs in 1982, leaving the
White Sox and their pay television venture to continue broadcasting on “free”
over-the-air TV with the Cubs and WGN.
He was doing games in the bleachers at Wrigley Field and enjoying
beers with the fans. He led fans in singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”
during the seventh inning stretch, which became bigger than the Cubs game at
times. It is fair to say, and Zminda does so in several ways, that Caray was
the reason the Cubs became so popular even when they were not performing well
on the field.
His drinking and
late-night lifestyle was as legendary as his work. Many people in the book,
including his third wife and many broadcast partners, comment that they could
not keep up with Harry. After a stroke in 1987 and other medical scares in
later years, this was toned down, but Harry still kept up an active nightlife
until very late in his life.
There is one more
aspect of Caray’s career that Zminda handled very fairly and that was his
many mistakes and malapropos late in his career. While that endeared him even more to many
Cubs fans, it was drawing much criticism from other fans and also other
baseball journalists, both in print and on the air. While many of these critics acknowledged
his greatness, they simply believed it was time for Harry to retire. However, that never really happened as he
stayed on the air with the Cubs through the 1997 season and he died before
the 1998 season. That was hard on his family, not only for his loss, but he
was scheduled to broadcast with his grandson Chip beginning that season. It was the one thing he wanted to do that
didn’t happen. Otherwise, he led an
amazing life that any reader who has heard of the man, whether that reader
was a fan of Caray or a critic, will want to read about in this excellent
book.
I wish to thank
Rowman and Littlefield for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in
exchange for an honest review.
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Book
Format Read:
E-Book (Kindle)
E-Book (Kindle)
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