The call came on the evening of Jan. 9, as the Caray family gathered in the living room in St. Augustine, Fla.
Sitting on pins and needles, St. Louis Cardinals broadcaster Chip Caray, his wife, Susan, and three of their children Summerlyn, Stefan, and Tristan, waited with bated breath as a fourth child, Chris Caray, answered the phone. His agent, Lou Oppenheim, was on the line, and he had a couple of pertinent questions.
NBC Sports California, the regional cable network of the Oakland A’s, had spent the offseason conducting a search for a new play-by-play voice. Chris was a finalist, and the network had circled Jan. 10 as their internal deadline. Oppenheim began the call with some logistic inquiries. If Chris was hired, a cross-country move would need to take place. Where would he live? What would the transportation situation be like? Would he get an apartment?
“I said, ‘Dude, I can’t even answer these right now,’” Chris recalled with a laugh.
The response from Oppenheim?
“Well, you better come up with answers pretty fast, because you got the job.”
Chaos erupted in the Caray household. A fourth generation of the family had made it to the major leagues. At 24 years old, Chris was officially a big-league broadcaster, the same age as his father when he landed his first professional gig.
Back at the Coliseum for @ChrisCaray‘s A’s play-by-play debut 🙌
📺: NBC Sports California
📲: https://t.co/UNpcnG1dVE pic.twitter.com/zBKOKPnqEO— A’s on NBCS (@NBCSAthletics) April 13, 2024
Chris joins Jenny Cavnar, who made history as the first female primary play-by-play voice in MLB, with the two splitting time calling A’s games in 2024. Chris described the sharing of duties as a roughly 60/40 split — Cavnar will call a slew of A’s home games and all of the team’s road games this season. Chris will take the rest.
In doing so, Chris will continue a long lineage of the family business, dating nearly eight decades to when great-grandfather Harry Caray first manned the broadcast booth for the Cardinals, kickstarting a major-league broadcasting career that would span 53 years. Skip Caray came next, spending over three decades broadcasting for the Atlanta Braves. Chip followed accordingly, and is now in his second year as the voice of the Cardinals after spending the prior 20 seasons with the Atlanta Braves.
There has been at least one Caray calling at least one major-league game every season since 1945. But on Monday, two Carays will call the same game.
The Cardinals will visit Oakland for the final time Monday, kicking off a three-game interleague series against the A’s. When they do, Chip will continue his usual duties as the Cardinals’ play-by-play voice from the visiting broadcast booth. In the booth next to him, Chris will do the same for the home team.
It will be a surreal experience that neither Chip nor Chris can put into words.
“I’m not super emotional, but I guess I’ll probably have a few tears,” Chip said. “You know, I miss my dad terribly. Wish he was still here. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him.”
“It’s kind of symbolic in a way,” he added. “I’m not getting any younger and the symbolic passing of the torch, at least for our family business, has begun. To see your kids have a dream, to see your kids pursue that dream and then to see that dream fulfilled is incredibly rewarding and exciting, and I can’t wait to see where he takes that torch.”
For Chris, the scheduling lines up almost as fate. Monday will be his fourth game in the big leagues, and four is his favorite number (his legal name is Harry Christopher Caray IV and he is a sibling of four).
“I had been asked a couple of times what I am looking more forward to, whether it’s my debut or (calling a game) with my dad,”…
This article was originally published by a theathletic.com . Read the Original article here. .