Skip

Skip...

I spent a lot of my youth in a house back in the woods with no cable and woods too dense to get a satellite signal in. I was pretty much without WGN, TBS, ESPN or any other source of baseball on TV for a good long while. The only access I had was when Fox or somebody would televise a game nationally. I think it's from that lack of access that comes my irritation whenever Bud Selig decides to throw a game of importance to a cable network.

I can remember complaining about it once upon a time, and somebody commenting on the Blog, like I was the biggest idiot ever: just turn to TBS, they're on there.

There's still an area of folks who don't have easy access to such stuff, but who could still be reached out to.

(The same person who made the comment threw his hands up in disgust when the NFL network was showing important games last year....same rule applies, but it's different when they wear the shoes, I guess).

Anyway, the point to this little post. I get online this morning, and Steven's e-mailed me to let me know Skip Caray's passed away.

It's a bummer. I knew he wasn't doing well with his health...but still, it's sad news this morning.

Living out in BFE like I did, we weren't completely cut off. We lived like the 1940's, and had baseball on the radio. Lots of Braves affiliates in this neck of the woods. They'd change every year, and sometimes you'd miss a Friday game for high school football...or a Saturday night game because playing the Oldies Show was a little more profitable.

But I've listened to a goodly number of Braves games on the radio. For years, the core for TV and radio was Skip, along with Joe Simpson, Don Sutton and Pete van Wieren, with occasional visits from longtimer Ernie Johnson. They're not a bad bunch to listen to for a ballgame.

I've said it before about a couple other announcers (Steve Stone, among them)....they may not be technically the greatest, but listening to them's like going home all the same.

Skip was one of those guys.

Good baseball voice. Very dry sense of humor. Once spent an entire ballgame ragging Joe Simpsons after he spoke the words "the second base side of second base." And entire ballgame. Once got his Dad to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh inning stretch, one weekend when the Cubs were visiting Atlanta Fulton County Stadium. And there were more than a few times he sounded like he'd had one or two too many oat sodas during the game.

I've always said a good baseball announcer is a guy (or a gal) you'd like to watch a ballgame with.

Skip was one of those guys.

And there aren't going to be too many of them like that, anymore. Look at Chip...he's as homogenized as they come. Skip had his own voice. You gotta dig that.

Anyway. Thanks, Skip. Sorry to see you go.