Harry Caray and his “tell-it-like-it-is” style of broadcasting had become much of a symbol of the Cubs as the ivy that covers the center field wall at Wrigley Field.

This veteran play-by-play announcer was perhaps best recognized for his tradition of singing “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” during the 7th inning stretch and for his famous exclamations: “It might be, it could be, it is! A home run!” and “Holy cow!”

Caray was born Harry Christopher Carabina of French-Romanian and Italian parentage in one of the poorest sections of St. Louis. He was an infant when his father died. He was taken in by his aunt upon the death of his mother when he was only ten. As a young man, Caray played baseball at the semi-pro level for a short time before auditioning for a radio job at the age of 19. He then spent a few years learning the trade at radio stations in Joliet, Illinois and Kalamazoo, Michigan. Caray did play-by-play for the St. Louis Hawks professional basketball team (now the Atlanta Hawks), the University of Missouri football team and he announced three Cotton Bowl games.

It was in St. Louis, covering the Cardinals from 1945 to 1969, where Caray gained national fame. He was named “Baseball Announcer of the Year” for seven years in a row by The Sporting News for his work with the Cardinals. Caray was also inducted into the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame located in New York in 1989.

After a quarter of a century in St. Louis, Caray moved to California to announce the Oakland A’s games on television and radio during the 1970 season. The following year, Caray came to Chicago to become the radio/television voice of the cross-town Chicago White Sox, a position he held until 1981.

Caray reached a major career milestone on July 23, 1989, when he was honored as the winner of the Ford Frick Award by the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. During his five-minute acceptance speech, Caray said, “The more I think of all the history which surrounds me, the more inadequate I feel.”

Caray’s son, Skip, who described his father as “…a mediocre singer but a hell of a broadcaster,” has followed in the Caray broadcasting tradition. Skip Caray is the long-time voice of the Atlanta Braves and the National Basketball Association. In 1989, Skip’s son Chip was hired as the play-by-play voice of the NBA’s Orlando Magic, marking the first time three generations had broadcast major sports at the same time. After Harry's passing Chip served as a broadcaster for the Cubs until 2004 when he joined his father in Atlanta.

Caray and his wife “Dutchie,” maintained two residences; one in Palm Springs, California, and legal residence in Chicago during the baseball season. When asked his plans for retirement, Caray summed up his plans in one word: “Never.”

When Harry Met Dutchie

The same kind of persistence Harry Caray employed breaking into the broadcasting business was used to snare the woman who shared the roller-coaster ride of the last 23 years of his life. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Dolores Goldmann was nicknamed “Dutchie” partly for her ethnic background.

Trying to get her mind off her vast responsibilities as a single mother of five children, Dutchie’s friends took her out to Brennan’s, a restaurant in the St. Louis suburbs. Here she met Harry Caray, who was then in his 25th season as Cardinals announcer, for the first time. “The next couple of times I was in there, Harry happened to come in, and he talked to me. I really wasn’t following his career, because I didn’t have time to listen to games. Harry sent a bottle of champagne to my table, but that didn’t impress me. I had so many other things on my mind.” Caray kept asking Dutchie to dinner, but she turned him down. “I just wasn’t interested,” she says. He stepped up the campaign, calling her at home. Again, she told the announcer she was busy and worked late. No problem, we’ll go out to dinner late in the evening, he responded. Eventually, reluctantly, Dutchie finally took him up on his offer.

Then Caray was abruptly fired from the Cardinals job after the 1969 season. He continued his pursuit of Dutchie long-distance from Oakland, where he worked on Athletics games in the 1970 season. “He’d come back to St. Louis on days off,” she says. “It got to the point where he would call me from Oakland and tell me when he’d be coming in.” Caray even enlisted good buddy Pete Vonachen in the wooing process. More folks got involved in the act when Caray migrated to Chicago to work for the White Sox in 1971. Dutchie came up occasionally to go out with Caray, but expected nothing to come of the relationship. Caray thought differently. “He began asking me to marry him,” Dutchie says. “That went on for three to four years. I kept saying no.” “No” was still the answer even after the couple obtained a marriage license. But Caray simply wore down his best gal. When he had finally worn down her last bit of resistance in 1975, he took no chances that she’d get cold feet. Friends summoned Judge Norman Barry to the Ambassador East Hotel, where Caray lived at the time. Harry’s buddies, Ben Stein and Emmett O’Neill, quickly arrived to serve as witnesses, and the vows were exchanged at 4 p.m. on May 19. “He really was persistent,” Dutchie says in an understatement. “He got his way no matter what. He was just so adamant about getting married."