Harry was with the Chicago White Sox for 10 years and with the Cubs for 15 years. He started "take me out to the ballgame at old Comiskey park, while broadcasting with the White Sox. He was a baseball fan. More importantly, he was a Chicago Baseball fan, He loved the Cubs and White Sox equally. Harry was loved by ALL Chicago baseball fans.Why do Cub fans think they own the rights to Harry Caray?
Having gotten to know Harry a little bit through a charitable organization that he generously supported, I must correct a couple of misunderstandings about him that you have.
First of all, Harry did not leave the White Sox because he thought baseball should be free. IN his autobiography "Holy Cow", Harry talked about this, and while he wasn't crazy about the idea of pay-TV (which is different from cable- it involved a scrambled signal with people paying basically to rent a descrambling box, and involved only one channel, not hundreds of them), his real concern was not the idea of being on a paid service, but instead was the fact that they had only sold about 40,000 subscriptions. He actually once told me that, if there had been a million or so subscribers, he would have stayed. While Harry did always feel the game was for the fans, his moving to the North Side was precipitated more by his concern that he would disappear from view if he stayed with the Sox. And to be honest, as much as Harry seemed to be a Chicago fan, his true baseball love was still the Cardinals, his hometown team.
As to why so many Cubs fans think they "own" him, I think it is more because of the level his career went to with the Cubs. Remember, WGN became a superstation not long after Harry started with the Cubs, and that is when he went from being a very well liked local broadcaster to a national figure who reached almost legendary status. I am lucky enough to have heard him with the Cardinals, (my parents are originally from Central Illinois, and I spent many summer nights listening to Cardinals games with my father and grandfather while visiting that area) White Sox and the Cubs. Those of us who had that privilege (even Cubs fans like myself) appreciate Harry's career for his entire body of work.
I would liken it to fans associating a particular player with one particular team. reggie Jackson, for example, played 9 years with the A's, and 6 with the Angels, but most fans (myself included) think of him as a Yankee (5 seasons) simply because that was when he was the most visible. Likewise, I will always tend to think of Carlton Fisk as a member of the Red Sox, despite the fact that he played more seasons for the White Sox.
I don't think anyone associating Harry more with the Cubs then with any of the other 3 teams he did games for (don't forget- he did A's games for one season between his time with the Cards and the Sox) is necessarily a matter of refusing to acknowledge his time with those other teams, but simply a matter of his time with the Cubs being the time in which he was more visible.
Thank you for remembering him so fondly.
From a life long die hard Cubs fan who loved Harry even before he came up to the North Side.
The shame of it is that most Cubs fans only saw him as the lovely bumbling old man he became later. His work with the Cards and the White Sox was absoulutely incredible. As a kid I was convinced that Busch Stadium had to be the most exciting place on earth simply because of Harry.
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Why do Cub fans think they own the rights to Harry Caray?Harry FINISHED WITH THE CUBS.... Cubs for 15 years i believe is exactly what you just stated.. Guess what he was also an annoucer for the cardinals.. it all depends on who is loyal to YOU... and in that fact the CUBS were loyal to Harry, NOT the WHITESOX, and not the CARDINALS, he finished with the cubs because the cubs wanted him, and he loved the cubs. Dumb *** socks fans just keep looking for new ways to cut down the cubs.
I'm a Giants fan and I think they do.. Why not??? That's like saying Willie Mcovey isn't a Giant just because he played a few years in San Diego,,or Joe Montana isn't a Niner just because he ended it in K.C...
You think Harry; you think of the Cubs!
Everyone knows what Harry meant to Chicago. Unfortunately, seems like only the Cubs fans are willing to pay tribute to him %26amp; talk about him with respect. OK, he did start the 7th inning stretch with the Sox, but it obviously didn't become popular until he went to the Cubs. He may have been loved by fans of both teams, but I have never heard any Sox fan of any age say anything about him other than 'he was a drunk broadcaster'. Sounds to me like loyalties run thin on Shields %26amp; 35th.
I don't care who he announced for he was the reason the mute button was put on TV's. I do have to say that White Sox fans are easier to be around than Cub fans.
when u think of him if u dont think of him with the cubs your crazy not many people no who was till the cubs
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