Voice of the People

By MIKE DOWNEY

Feb. 19, 1998 12 AM PT

NAGANO, Japan —

Some summer days, I don’t know what I would have done without Harry Caray. He made a baseball game a ball, no matter how bad our ballclub. That hoarse voice. Those googly eyes. What else can I tell you about Harry, except that the Cardinals, White Sox and Cubs had him first, but the angels have him now.

Caray, who died Wednesday in Rancho Mirage, Calif., four days after collapsing during dinner with his wife, was the Anti-Vin Scully. Debonair, no. Eloquent, no. Let’s face it, Harry was no hammock; he was an unmade bed. He was strong of lung, as blustery as the city where he worked, and king of the non sequitur. Never let it be said that between a ball and a strike, Harry Caray couldn’t squeeze in a plug for a church bingo group in the bleachers today from Waukegan.

But that’s why baseball has bunters and belters, because it takes all kinds.

“Hey! Lemme hear you!” Harry would shout (as if Harry needed to shout), before his customary seventh-inning serenade. He would put down his butterfly net, the one he used to snag foul balls, then caterwaul “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in a rendition screeched with all the tone-deaf gusto of Edith Bunker.

I couldn’t explain Harry Caray to people who caught his act for the first time. On our coast, where lovers of baseball were accustomed to Vinny’s clarity and grace, or in, say, Michigan and upper Ohio, where the down-home sound of Ernie Harwell was as soothing as a home remedy, Harry was a vaudeville one-man band with a harmonica and a tambourine. He was jarring. His broadcast was a cacophony of cheers, jeers and ads for beer.

“Cub Fan! Bud Man!” Harry would crow on cue, dressed like a Blues Brother.

His reputation in recent years was that of a homer, of a man who shamelessly was there to root, root, root for the home team. But in olden times, as any radio listener from St. Louis or Chicago could gladly round out an outsider’s education, no play-by-play guy on the air was as candid as Harry Caray, or as blunt.

I remember Don Kessinger, the old shortstop, taking a turn as skipper of the clueless White Sox, and being astounded at the things being said in that TV-radio booth. “I get calls here from home after the game,” Kessinger said at his manager’s desk, shaking his head. “ ‘Did you hear what that man said? How can he say that about his own team?’ ”

That man was Harry, who was more entertaining than the team, usually. People sat in the stands with earphones on, just as L.A.’s fans do. They would crane their necks to see what Harry was up to, or which drop-by celebrity had stepped up to the mike. Often it would be a Bill Murray, a Jim Belushi, a Joe Mantegna . . . all loyal members of the fraternal order of Cub Fan, half-actor, half-martyr.

One day back when he was doing Cardinal games for a living, Harry got a first-time call from a long-time listener.

“Harry, this is Elvis,” the caller said.

“Elvis who?” Harry asked.

The Elvis, Elvis said (not that way).

“Yeah, and I’m Perry Como,” Harry said, and hung up.

A few hours later, as the actual Elvis sat with the actual Harry to talk a little baseball, it was clear that you don’t need to have a beautiful voice to have a faithful audience. Harry always sounded like a guy with a mouthful of Crackerjack. His factory-original larynx must have outlived the warranty. In the later years, after his stroke, poor Harry sort of half-spat his sentences, like Sylvester the cat. “Ryne Than-berg.” “Thammy Tho-tha.”

But he was a gamer. He came to the park every day, raring to go. OK, so maybe the names got mangled here or there, and maybe trusty sidekick Steve Stone made more saves in the booth than he ever did on the mound. It was irrelevant. Harry was as much a part of Wrigley Field as the ivy, as great a fixture at Comiskey Park as the exploding scoreboard, as esteemed in St. Louis (for old-timers there) as Stan the Man’s statue.

I used to drop by the booth myself.

Jimmy Piersall would be by Harry’s side in the ‘70s, playing Costello to his Abbott, jabbering away about everything and nothing, Harry peering through his Mister Magoo spectacles, Jimmy denying being nuts by claiming he had the sanitarium papers to prove it.

“Popppppped it up,” Harry would moan, when a batter did.

“Run it out, you bum,” Jimmy would add.

“That wouldn’t be a home run in a phone booth,” Harry would pipe up.

“He should be shot,” Jimmy would point out.

I never had a better time, although I suspect the batters did.

Over the last few winters, occasionally a Cub-blue envelope would come in the mail, with a Palm Springs postmark on the front and a “Holy Cow” emblem on the back. I would open it as eagerly as I would an IRS refund. A letter from Harry was almost as good as hearing his voice, though not quite. Holy cow, he’s gone. Cubs lose. We all do today.

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Harry Caray Miscellany

Broadcast games for 53 years (16 with Cubs).

Elected to the broadcasters’ wing of Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989.

Elected to the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame in 1988.

Inducted into the National Assn. of Broadcasters’ Hall of Fame in 1994.

Began his career in 1945 with the St. Louis Cardinals and stayed with the team until 1969.

After announcing for Oakland one year (1970), became the broadcaster for the Chicago White Sox from 1971-81.

Joined the Cubs in 1982.

Best in the Business

Announcers in baseball’s Hall of Fame, with year inducted:

Mel Allen: 1978