Skip Caray (1939-2008)

One of the longtime voices of the Atlanta Braves, Skip Caray, died in his sleep Sunday at the age of 68. Caray had been fighting health problems for the last decade or so- including diabetes, congestive heart failure, an irregular heart beat, and reduced liver and kidney functions.

Caray, along with Pete Van Wieren and Ernie Johnson, Sr., were the broadcast team for a nation starting in the mid-1970's when Ted Turner decided to put his WTCG, and then WTBS, on satellite television for cable programmers. The Atlanta Braves became, literally, "America's Team."

Caray, initially, started broadcasting Atlanta Crackers games in 1964. He also would be the voice for the NBA Atlanta Hawks and the Ted Turner-created Goodwill Games broadcasting play-by-play for the motoball events.

He was known as an on-air cynic. He would make fun of callers who would ask silly questions in his call-in shows. He would make up false home towns for fans catching foul balls in the stands- a bit of an homage to longtime MLB play-by-play man Ernie Harwell.

At the end of the 2007 season, WTBS was being pulled from national cable outlets and splintered into two channels. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Tim Tucker recalls the last words spoken by Caray on that day;

"The people all over the country who send you Christmas cards; the people who when dad passed, 5,000 of them sent notes or condolence cards; when I lost my brother the people all over the country who sent condolence cards as well — how do you thank those people, and how do you say goodbye to those people? I don't know, but I'm going to try.

" ... To all you people who have watched the Braves for these 30 years . . . thank you. We appreciate you more than you will ever know. . . . When we first came on the air on TBS, which was then WTCG, the big TV shows were M.A.S.H, Dallas, Laverne & Shirley, Happy Days and Charlie's Angels. We outlasted them all. The only one that beat us was 60 Minutes.

"We don't want to get all maudlin here, but thank you folks and God bless you. And we're going to miss you every bit as you miss us."

Skip Caray will, indeed, be missed.

Caray's most famous call, from the 1992 NLCS against the Pittsburgh Pirates, can be found here
How many times does Skip say, "Braves Win!"
The answer- 5, and Russ Hodges is smiling.

WGST AM 640 is the flagship for Braves broadcasts. Their coverage can be found here
The Braves press release is here
Mark Bowman's coverage is here
Steve Rushin's article on the Braves-Pirates Game 7 is here
Fox5Atlanta has coverage here