Home Run Derby

Harry Caray is associated most famously with the Chicago Cubs as their longtime play-by-play announcer, beer swiller, and seventh inning stretch conductor.  God rest his soul.

But lest we forget (before WGN-TV put Harry in the living rooms across America and not just on UHF in Chicago) he began singing “Take me out to the Ballgame” not at Wrigley Field … but while he was the broadcaster for the Chicago White Sox on the South Side of Chicago. 

From 1971-1975, Caray just used to sing the song in the booth for himself – he said it was the only song that he knew all the words.  But owner Bill Veeck noticed that the crowd was singing along with Harry … so someone planted a stadium mic in the booth, and the Comiskey Park crowd ate it up.

Everybody has seen lots and lots of video of Harry conducting the crowd at Wrigley … but how about back when he was on the South Side, root root rooting for the White Sox?

Well, here you go … from the summers of 1979 and 1980, here’s nearly twenty times Harry sang at Comiskey Park (sorry about all the bare chested men at the world’s largest outdoor saloon)

The organist, Nancy Faust, still plays at US Cellular Field and 2008 will be her 39th season with the club.  Unfortunately for Sox fans, she only plays day games now.  

Note how crisp his enunciation of “White Sox” is during those renditions instead of the drawn out “Cubbies” that has become associated with Harry and Take Me Out to the Ballgame.  That was Harry way before his stroke in 1987.  After that, he stopped singing the whole song and started “conducting” the crowd a bit more.

So long, everybody.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2008 at 4:54 pm and is filed under Cubs, Harry Caray, White Sox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.