Making It His Kind of Town

Avid and casual baseball fans, residents and visitors expressed how much they will miss Hall of Fame baseball broadcaster Harry Caray at Wrigley Field in Chicago on Thursday.

Caray died Wednesday in Rancho Mirage of cardiac arrest.

At Wrigley Field, they piled all sorts of items--beer bottles and cans, Cub hats, flowers, handmade cards, candles, key chains, American flags, signed baseballs, jackets, schedules and even a carton of milk with his trademark “Holy Cow” printed on the side--in a shrine that began to form just hours after Caray’s death was announced.

A banner was strung across the front of Caray’s downtown restaurant, where he was a frequent visitor: “We Love and Miss You, Harry.” At Wrigley Field, a sign read: “Holy Cow. You’ll Always Be With us Harry.”

Cub first baseman Mark Grace said Caray “was beyond an icon. He was beyond an ambassador for the game. He was the most popular figure, I think, in baseball, beyond a doubt.”

Caray had voiced ideas about how his death should be handled.

“I’ve threatened to be cremated and have my ashes strewn over Comiskey Park and over Wrigley Field, and I really should hold some ashes back for St. Louis,” Caray once said of his birthplace.

Dutchie Caray, Harry’s wife, issued a statement Thursday thanking Caray’s fans and the staff at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

“I have never met a finer, more compassionate people,” she said.

Services will be held in Palm Springs and Chicago.

There will be a wake and prayer service at St. Theresa’s Roman Catholic Church in Palm Springs beginning at 5 this evening and a visitation at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago next Thursday.

A funeral Mass will be said the day after the visitation at Holy Name and Caray will be buried at All Saints Cemetery in suburban Chicago on Saturday, Feb. 28, in a private service, his longtime employer, WGN TV, said.