Born To The Booth

Actually, they should sing the rest, to the tune of Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Harry, as baseball fans know, is the maestro of the seventh-inning stretch. He is also famous for "Holy cow!"; and his home run call—"It might be.... It could be.... It is!"—has earned such renown that he is in the broadcasters' wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame. But Harry is much more than those shticks. For one thing, he can be brutally honest on the air. For another, he can be just plain brutal.

HARRY: [Dodger outfielder] Mike Marshall just got back from Los Angeles, where he was getting cocaine for his injured foot.

PARTNER STEVE STONE: That's novocaine, Harry.

It would take pages to recite every story of Harry's 48-year career, so the following three will have to suffice.

The first tale, no doubt apocryphal, takes place in 1945 at Sportsman's Park, where the rookie play-by-play man is describing a routine infield play in terms so dramatic that it sends shivers down the spines of his listeners. Dizzy Dean, doing a rival play-by-play from an adjacent booth, leans into Caray's booth and says, "Are we broadcasting the same game?"

The second story takes place one night during the '50s, across the street from the Chase-Park Plaza hotel in St. Louis. Harry gets into his car about 3 a.m. and finds it won't start. He calls the auto club. While he waits for help to arrive, two robbers pull up, point guns at him and demand his money. Harry blurts out, "Holy cow!"

"Hey, aren't you Harry Caray?" asks one of the robbers.

The gunmen then talk baseball with Harry for about 15 minutes, and they forget to rob him.

Then there was the time, in the early '60s, when Harry was in Memphis to do one of the weekly St. Louis Hawk basketball games that were played there while the Hawks considered whether to change cities. The afternoon of the game, the phone in his hotel room rang, and Harry picked it up.

"Harry," said the voice, "this is Elvis."