ST. LOUIS — His is the televised voice of summer, the chosen voice to serve as a soundtrack for St. Louis. Chip Caray’s narrations will carry across Cardinal Nation, wafting and weaving through the city like a knuckleball, from living room to back patio; from the neighbor’s home to the neighborhood bar; from North County to south city; from the site of Sportsman’s Park to Sportsman’s Park in Ladue; from The Hill to The Bevo Mill; from O’Fallon, Missouri, to O’Fallon, Illinois.
As the new television broadcaster for the Cardinals, Caray will come into our homes and become part of our lives. Over the summer, you’ll spend more time hearing him talk than perhaps anyone else in your life. His larynx links the Cardinals fans to the Cardinals.
Now, I’ve never heard him call a game. Many of us in St. Louis haven’t. So we don’t fully know what we’re getting. He does have the pedigree, surely. But what entices me about the hire, announced officially Monday by both the Cardinals and Bally Sports Midwest, is his upbringing. Strip away his last name. Chip, perhaps just like you, is a kid from St. Louis County who was raised on Cardinals baseball, nourished by the team, its history, its intricacies. He studied broadcasting in college, but he got his education for this job just by growing up here, soaking up all that makes the Cardinals the Cardinals.
