Crafting the Call – Harry Caray without the schtick
In Episode 5, Jesse and I listen to Harry Caray broadcasting a World Series game before he became a cartoon character
Crafting the Call is a YouTube series that I developed along with Jesse Goldberg-Strassler. Each week, we examine different aspects of baseball play-by-play announcing, offering our perspective as working professionals for fans, and advice for fellow broadcasters.
When you think of Harry Caray, what comes to mind?
Maybe it’s the fun-loving older guy leading Wrigley Field in singing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” during the 7th inning stretch. Perhaps it’s the guy near the end of his career struggling to pronounce names. Or if you aren’t a huge baseball fan, it just might be the famous Will Ferrell impersonation from Saturday Night Live.
But once upon a time, Harry Caray was a mostly straightforward play-by-play announcer. Caray worked for the St. Louis Cardinals for 25 years, the Oakland A’s for one year, and the Chicago White Sox for 11 years, before he became a national treasure working for the Chicago Cubs from 1982-1997.
In Episode 5 of “Crafting the Call,” Jesse Goldberg-Strassler and I wanted to listen to Caray from early in his career. Jesse found this fantastic half inning from Game Three of the 1964 World Series. I’d never heard this before and intentionally didn’t listen to it before we recorded the episode.
Our conceit was let’s imagine this is an upcoming play-by-play announcer who is asking for advice on his demo reel, listen to the way he calls a game, pause it frequently, and give our opinion.
To me, it felt like when you analyze his work, “Harry” is the character who can’t help himself in showing off his larger-than-life personality, whereas “Caray” was the fundamental broadcaster who made sure you knew the important details.
You’ll hear both “Harry” and “Caray” in this half inning.
New episodes of “Crafting the Call” appear every Tuesday. Here’s a link to all the episodes. If you like this episode, do us a favor and click the subscribe button. That will help more people find it.
Here’s a breakdown of previous episodes:
Episode 1 – how to call an inside-the-park home run
Episode 2 – Vin Scully’s perfect words to describe Koufax’s perfect game
Episode 3 – Eck vs Gibson, four legends with four different calls
Episode 4 – how calling a Triple Play can be treacherous