RicoGregg said:
radioman148 said:
Another baseball announcer who deserves his props is Jack Brickhouse.
To this day I still think it was a travesty for WGN to put him in retirement when he reached 65 and then hire Harry Caray who was older than Brickhouse.
Sorry, Cubs fans, but IMO, Harry Caray was a travesty to sports broadcasting. Once I got a small dose of him on WGN, his act grew old and tiresome very fast, but then, the organization that hired him (Tribune) fired Milo Hamilton and Steve Stone, and put Jack Brickhouse out to pasture.
What's wrong with this picture? ???
Caray became a cartoon after his 1987 stroke. Before that, he was one of the best half-dozen play-callers in baseball history (the others being Vin Scully, Ernie Harwell, Jack Brickhouse, Harry Kalas, and Caray's former partner Jack Buck).
The whole sad Milo Hamilton/Harry Caray feud has been covered in other threads so I won't repeat it here. Brickhouse (by his own admission) was responsible for their unfortunate re-pairing.
Steve Stone and Chip Caray were gone because of thin-skinned Cub players and then-manager Dusty Baker. Hardly the first time that's happened in sports.
The new owners of the Cubs, when they takeover, whoever they are, need to take Caray's caricature off the Wrigley Field press box, and stop with the silly tradition of quasi-celebrities and others singing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" at every home game. That ritual is so "Harry Caray", and need I remind that Harry Caray is DEAD?
Yes he is, but it brings in the fans (not all of them true Cub fans). Brickhouse doesn't get the credit he deserves from both Chicago teams, but he just wasn't that kind of guy. He was a play-caller, not a party guy (at least on-camera - there have been stories circulating for decades about Brick and Harry carrousing on Rush Street). I doubt that a Vin Scully statue will ever adorn Dodger Stadium for the same reason, although he certainly deserves one.
The Harry Caray tributes at Wrigley Field will be there as long as the ballpark stands. And probably will be moved to whatever new park the Cubs eventually build.
