Despite Caray-Over, Skip Calls the Game in His Own Glib Way

In a survey of his peers, Vin Scully was picked as the best overall national play-by-play television announcer in baseball in this week’s TV Guide.

This is hardly startling news. Scully has been widely considered the best baseball announcer, TV or radio, for the last 30 years.

The magazine sent out questionnaires to 92 baseball announcers, asking them to grade the 7 top national play-by-play television announcers and the 5 top commentators on a scale of 1 to 5. Forty-four responded.

Scully himself, in protest of what he says is silliness, gave everyone a 5.

The one eye-catcher in the survey was the Caray family. Harry was ranked No. 4 overall in play-by-play, and his son, Skip, was No. 5. That’s a pretty good father-son act.

And there’s a chip--literally--off the younger block, too. He’s Skip’s son, Chip, only a year out of the University of Georgia, who is a weekend sports anchor in Greensboro, N.C.

The word legendary is used so often in front of Harry Caray’s name, you’d think it was part of it. He was big in St. Louis, spent a brief time in Oakland, then became an institution in Chicago, first with the White Sox and now with the Cubs.

Skip Caray became an announcer for the St. Louis Hawks of the National Basketball Assn. in 1967 and moved with the team to Atlanta the next year. He has been there ever since. He became an announcer for the Braves in 1976 and did both the Hawks and the Braves until 1983, when he chose to give up the job with the Hawks.

The word one usually sees in front of Skip’s name is underrated. He’s glib, smooth, entertaining, informative and honest.

Skip’s problem is that he works for TBS, Ted Turner’s cable network, which carries Turner’s dreadful Atlanta Braves. But this weekend, the games may be worth watching since the Braves play the San Francisco Giants in a four-game series beginning tonight. TBS will televise all four games.

Skip Caray’s style is totally different from his father’s.

Harry finished first in the enthusiasm category in the TV Guide survey. Skip was sixth. But in the quality-of-anecdotes category, Skip was fourth, Harry sixth.

Skip Caray said he doesn’t try to be different from his father, he just is.

“When I first got into this business, I tried to copy my father,” he said while in Los Angeles recently. “I soon learned that any announcer who tries to copy another is making a big mistake. I realized I just had to be myself.”

If you want enthusiasm, watch Harry Caray on WGN. If you like dry wit, watch Skip Caray on TBS.

Skip Caray will be 49 in August.

“I’m going to be the first son to pass his father in age,” he said. “My dad keeps knocking a few years off his.”

So, an interviewer wondered, what was it like having Harry Caray for a father?

“I don’t know. He’s the only father I ever had, so I don’t have anyone to compare him with.”

Caray smiled. “I’m not trying to give you a smart answer,” he said.

Caray, a wise guy on the air, is a wise guy off, too. But one can’t help liking him. The person he ridicules the most is himself. “If the networks ever decide to hire a fat guy, I’d be interested,” he said.

About his father, Skip Caray said: “We’re two different people. My father was an orphan who had a tough childhood.”

Skip not only had a father, he had a famous one, who took him to ballgames.

After Harry and Skip’s mother were divorced, when Skip was young, father and son remained close.

That was good--and bad.

When he didn’t go along to the park, the elder Caray knew young Skip would be listening to Cardinal games at home on the radio. So he regularly said, around 8:30, “Good night, Skippy.”

Said Skip: “It’s one thing I’ll never forgive him for. That followed me through grade school, junior high and high school.”

Caray, an all-city linebacker at Websters Groves High in suburban St. Louis, said: “Some guy across the line from me would say, ‘Good night, Skippy.’ I’d get mad. Then the guy would knock me down and run right over me.”

Skip Caray is the father of four--Chip, 23, and Cindy, 22, by a previous marriage; Shayelyn, 20, his wife Paula’s daughter whom Skip has adopted, and Joshua, 6, who is Skip’s and Paula’s son.

“My father has me beat in the marriage department, three to two,” Caray said. “I have some half brothers and sisters I’ve never met.”

Caray, before marrying Paula in 1976, was known as Good Time Skip because he was always ready to party. Now, he says, the road is boring.

“You know it’s bad when you come into Los Angeles and, without looking it up, know what time and what station ‘Twilight Zone’ is on,” he said while sipping an iced tea.

About Turner, his boss, Caray said: “He’s the most down-to-earth, filthy-rich guy you’ll ever meet.”

About announcing for the Braves, he said: “I figure it’s job security. They’ve got bigger things to worry about than firing an announcer.”

TV-Radio Notes

On Monday, Jim Lampley will make his debut as a news anchorman on Channel 2, and Vic (the Brick) Jacobs will start as a sports commentator at Channel 13.

Jacobs is an outlandish sportscaster from Fresno. He has spiked hair and wears string ties and a tuxedo jacket. He also throws a foam brick at things and people he doesn’t like. “I put emotion into my telecasts,” he said.

Channel 13 news director Ed Coghlan said: “We’ll give him a free rein, but when he does something that doesn’t work, we’ll let him know about it.”

Said Jacobs: “I’ve toned my act down from what it once was.”

Lampley’s move to news opens the door for Keith Olbermann to become the No. 1 sportscaster at Channel 2 after his contract with Channel 5 expires on Sept. 1. Andi Sporkin of Channel 2 said the station would not hire a replacement for Lampley until after Olbermann’s contract expires. “We will at least talk to Olbermann,” she said.

Olbermann’s agent, Jean Sage, is scheduled to meet today with Jeff Wald, Channel 5 news director, to determine how badly Olbermann’s current employer wants to keep him.

HBO offers an attractive welterweight boxing doubleheader tonight at 7, PDT, from Atlantic City, N.J. Marlon Starling faces Tomas Molinares in a World Boxing Assn. title bout, and Lloyd Honeyghan meets Yungkil Chung in a World Boxing Council title bout. . . . The Rams will play the Cincinnati Bengals in the Hall of Fame exhibition football game at Canton, Ohio, on ABC at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, and the San Francisco 49ers will play the Miami Dolphins in London on NBC Sunday at 10 a.m.

More football: ESPN will televise the Chicago Bruisers vs. the Detroit Drive in the Arena Bowl Saturday at 5:30 p.m. . . . The Dodgers will make yet another network TV appearance Saturday. Their game with Houston, originally scheduled for 7:05, will start at 12:15 instead, so that NBC can televise it.

The Atlanta Hawks are on a 12-day, 4-city tour of the Soviet Union, marking the first time a National Basketball Assn. team has gone there. TBS will televise the Hawks’ game against the Soviet National team Saturday at 10:05 a.m. . . . The Subaru Cycling Invitational, held earlier this month in Beverly Hills, will be televised Sunday at 9 a.m. on Channel 7. The one-hour telecast is produced by GGP of San Francisco. . . . Andy Mill, who will marry Chris Evert Saturday in Boca Raton, Fla., is employed by GGP as a skiing commentator.