A new look at Harry Caray’s remarkable life

It has been 46 years since the Cardinals fired Harry Caray, and it was 18 years ago this month that he died. But Caray’s legacy lives on, and MLB Network looks back on the remarkable career of the one-of-a-kind baseball broadcaster in a fine one-hour documentary that is set to debut at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

The program shines because it addresses the bad with the good. The bulk of the show centers on his days in Chicago, where he became not only a local icon but a national celebrity because his work on Cubs games was telecast across the country via WGN. But there also is a meaty segment on his time in St. Louis, where he was born and grew his roots by calling the Cards for a quarter century on the wide-reaching KMOX radio signal.

Caray was outspoken on the air, never afraid to criticize the home team or its players, and he made his mark with play-by-play punctuated with his exhilarating “It might be! It could be! It is!” home run calls.

Many listeners remember his mispronunciations and zany stories from his latter years with the Cubs, but in his heyday he was a master broadcaster with a crisp and exciting delivery, always with the listener in mind. He was a man of the people.

“He worked for several different big-league teams but Harry always felt like no matter who he was being paid by, he always felt like he worked for the fans,” current Cubs announcer Pat Hughes, who worked with Caray, says in the show.

His rough childhood is discussed – his father left the family when Caray was a baby, then his mother died when he was about 5. That left Harry Carabina to be raised by an aunt in a tough environment before later moving to Webster Groves, and he became determined at an early age to make something of himself. He chose broadcasting and after some small-time jobs brazenly wrote Cardinals ownership, saying he was a better announcer than who the team had on the air.

He got the job and quickly made his mark, and given his tough road to getting there he staunchly protected his turf. He made it clear that he was No. 1 and Jack Buck No. 2 in a Hall-of-Famers-to-be booth.

Joe Buck, now Fox’s lead baseball, football and golf announcer, wasn’t around in those days but heard the stories.

“I know from talking to my dad that whenever anything big was going on, if my dad was on the microphone he got a tap on the shoulder and it was time for him to get up and Harry to sit down,” he says in the program. “That was Harry’s broadcast, and that was not lost on my dad.”