RIP SKIP!
Skip Caray dies; longtime Braves broadcaster
I dunno if any of you read this, but I am here almost in tears. Skips voice represented baseball to me. Along with his father, Dave Neihaus and Vin Scully, Skip Caray was baseball for me. I have always wanted to be an announcer and these are the guys I idolized. I never looked up to players on the field, cause they played a kids game, one I love dearly, but it's a game. It's the voices that brought that game to life that I Idolized.
In 1983 when I moved to Oklahoma my brother and I quickly became Braves fans, as it was their games that we got to see thanks to TBS. It was Skip, along with Pete Van Wieren, who we listened to for countless games. My dad would even let us stay up on school nights to watch the games when the Braves played the Padres or Dodgers out on the West Coast, which meant that we often didn't get to bed until after midnight CST.
I can't believe he is gone... he will be missed!
RIP SKIP! :(
I dunno if any of you read this, but I am here almost in tears. Skips voice represented baseball to me. Along with his father, Dave Neihaus and Vin Scully, Skip Caray was baseball for me. I have always wanted to be an announcer and these are the guys I idolized. I never looked up to players on the field, cause they played a kids game, one I love dearly, but it's a game. It's the voices that brought that game to life that I Idolized.
In 1983 when I moved to Oklahoma my brother and I quickly became Braves fans, as it was their games that we got to see thanks to TBS. It was Skip, along with Pete Van Wieren, who we listened to for countless games. My dad would even let us stay up on school nights to watch the games when the Braves played the Padres or Dodgers out on the West Coast, which meant that we often didn't get to bed until after midnight CST.
I can't believe he is gone... he will be missed!
RIP SKIP! :(
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Craig (17) on
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Gosh, that is really sad. Only 68...too young! I guess he has been suffering from health problems all season (diabetes, heart, liver and kidney issues).
Growing up with cable, the Braves were on all the time. Skip's voice was one of those that you can't help to love...it symbolized baseball.
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Permalink Reply by Christina (8) on
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Man oh man was this a bit of a shock to me. I couldn't help but be a little sad. My Grandma is a huge Braves fan, so listening to Joe and Skip announce the games grew to be second nature to me.
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Permalink Reply by Tim on
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Actually, there was a point this off-season that Skip nearly passed. One report said at the time they even had a minister give him his last rites.
In Atlanta, the day after, what seemed like all stations had tributes to him, not just the sports stations. Some were a little funky "tributes" where one of the DJ's said he couldn't get him out of his mind, even with his wife (nah, wasn't disturbing), but most were classy, also playing soundbits of tributes from Pete Van Wieren and Joe Simpson.
One of my good friends said it best: Skip Caray was a part of the Braves as much as Hank Aaron, Tom Glavine, or Chipper Jones is or was.
For me, he was just an announcer, but a funny one. I think being from Detroit and growing up listening to the Tigers, it was Ernie Harwell as my announcer so I didn't have that connection to Skip as some of my friends have. He was always brutally honest in his announcing. I couldn't classify him as a big homer announcer, but at the same time he did love the Braves.
A few of my favorite Skip lines:
"We are in a delay so Fox can get in all of their hundred corporate sponsors; if you want to know why it's taking forever for games to finish, there's a good reason why."-from a Braves game that was televised on Fox.
"I'll give you traffic update around Atlanta: I-75 has 2 lanes blocked; I-85 has 3 lanes blocked; Georgia 400 is wall-to-wall; I-20 is always blocked."-during a Braves weekday game when Pete asked if anybody knew the traffic report for the Atlanta area, which is bad.
"If you don't like my announcing, bite me."-said hundreds of times.
"And, like lambs to the slaughter, the Braves take the field"-during the 80's when the Braves stunk.
Dialogue (when the Braves were in the midst of a major slump in 2006, notably because the bullpen blew so many leads and turned out into losses)
"It is like Sleeping Beauty is waiting for the prince to come and kiss her and he hasn't shown up"-Pete
"That's because he's trying out for the Braves bullpen"-Skip
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