Chip Caray told to leave by TBS
Chip Caray was given his walking papers yesterday. The man who left the Cubs after 2004 to work for TBS only made it 5 years in Atlanta. Andy Dolan from Desipio explains:
For the third contract in a row, Chip Caray has been told “Yeah, that’s probably enough.”
Back in the late ’90s, you might remember that Chip was the host of Fox’s pre-game baseball telecasts. It’s why, when you see rebroadcasts of some of the Sammy Sosa freak show homer games from late 1998 you are as likely to hear Dan Roan or Wayne Larivee doing it as you are Chip. He was gone every Saturday to LA to do the Fox stuff.
When that contract ended, Fox told him to just go concentrate on his job with the Cubs.
At the end of the awful, horrible, 2004 season, the Cubs informed Chip that they had no interest in the exclusive re-negotiation window they had, and that he should just go find a job somewhere else. So he ended up at TBS with his dad, doing Braves games.
It looked like a coup for him as TBS was in the process of picking up a national TV package and playoff games starting in 2007. Three postseasons later, and TBS has told Chip they no longer want him fucking up their telecasts.
That’s what happens. And all the guy did was fuck up telecasts specifically this fall when he was doing the playoffs. As Cub fans we had grown to expect that from Chip during his time covering the Cubs. Finally this fall after three years of watching Chip call the playoffs the national media had caught on to the fact that Chip wasn’t very good calling games and he was a master of the odd call. Chip’s bad calls included this in the one game playoff.
In my opinion TBS does a good job with their NBA coverage. Their baseball coverage has not been up to that standard the first three seasons. Maybe this move will start to send them in the right direction.
Chip of course has his own story gang. He shared it with the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s David O’Brien:
“The only comment I will say is, TBS treated me very, very well,” said Caray, a son of legendary Braves broadcaster Skip Caray, who died during the 2008 season. “I came to Atlanta to do Braves baseball. I didn’t choose the network job; it chose me.”
LOL. Chip didn’t choose the network job, it chose him. I don’t even know where to begin. Anyways, remember when Chip said the only comment he would make is TBS treated him well. Well he couldn’t resist keeping it just to that. He fired up an excuse:
“The business model that TBS chose didn’t present opportunity to do Braves baseball every day anymore,” Caray said. “Obviously they don’t have the inventory [of baseball games] and I’m better when I work more. That’s really what I wanted to do. At the end of the day, I’m happiest when I’m working and covering a team ever day. …
Nevermind the fact that he had a gig calling one of the LCS every year. Oh well.
wpbc
jackfsu
jeremyt32
Not that Chip was ever really good mind you, but I didn’t think he was “stab myself in the eardrums” kinds of bad with the Cubs. My personal opinion is his quality of work went downhill rather quickly once he ended up in Atlanta. Why is that? Who knows.
Maybe he finally felt like he had the job security his dad and grandfather did and could just “coast”. I found him tolerable when he called games for the Cubs. He was completely intolerable on TBS.
Matt
December 1, 2009 at 10:53 am
I guess I didn’t realize how bad he was with Cubs Matt. Maybe it was my Cubbie Blue eardrums listening. But I knew plenty of Cubs fans who couldn’t stand him. When he started doing the national games it became evident that he was way over his head. I’m surprised it took TBS three years to pull the plug. I would have pulled it after the first two.
wpbc
December 1, 2009 at 11:22 am
Well, as I said, I didn’t think he was awful with the Cubs. That is probably because A) He had Steve Stone to act as a net for him and B) The Cubs Kool-Aid I was chugging kept me from really seeing how awful he was.
I still tend to think he got comfortable, and thought the Braves would go to bat for him if times got tough. Obviously, since his contract was with TBS and not the Braves, that never came in to play. I wish him well, but would prefer to never hear him call a sporting event ever again.
mattlacasse
December 1, 2009 at 11:26 am
amen matt,
i suspect a small market team will give him a gig. he’s had enough big gigs that some team will sell it to their fans that they have a top notch announcer.
wpbc
December 1, 2009 at 11:59 am
I don’t know if even a small market team is going to give him a chance after failing miserably at the network level. His problem is not just bad announcing. It’s INACCURATE announcing. He’s getting facts wrong in the game. He’s a broadcast professional…not Joe Morgan who can spout lies all he wants and get away with it (but that’s another discussion).
But, for the sake of discussion, let’s say a smaller market team makes a colossal blunder and picks him up; who would it be? Here’s the top three as I would see it:
1) Marlins – Their fans barely notice that there’s even professional baseball being played, much less the quality of announcing going on. I think this would be the best fit…especially since he doesn’t speak Spanish, and a large portion of their fans do.
2) Toronto – Same deal as Florida. Not a passionate fanbase, and if he’s lucky, some of them speak French.
3) You would think Pittsburgh here, but you’d be wrong. The ‘Burgh has a passionate fan base and would revolt more than they already have if Chip were brought in. I think his other option might be Baltimore. He has a good relationship with Andy McPhail (it was Hendry that showed Chip the door) and Baltimore is just awful enough that fans aren’t paying attention just yet. Passionate fan base, but they’ve had their hearts broken too many times and won’t pay attention until the Birds show them something.
Part of me hopes he ends up in St. Louis. Dan McLaughlin, who currently does their TV is stab me in the eardrums kinds of bad, and paired with Al Hrabosky…even Cardinals fans hate the TV broadcasts. That might be epic kinds of comedy if Chip and Hrabosky were paired up.
mattlacasse
December 1, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Chip also actually looked good when paired with Joe Carter, and then as Matt mentioned, he had Stone propping him up.
Chip seemed to try too hard on the national broadcasts, as if he felt it was his job to make every baseball game into an exciting event. That just isn’t the nature of baseball and trying to force it makes him sound like an idiot even when he is calling what is actually happening instead of what he hoped would happen instead.
He’ll find a job somewhere. He still has the Caray name.
Aisle 424
December 1, 2009 at 1:23 pm
I think there’s a lot of truth to what Chip said. He’s just more comfortable when he calling the same team every day. He wasn’t nearly as bad with the Cubs as he had been at the national level. He was your basic play by play man. Maybe he was a bit worse than Len, but probably not by much. Those broadcasts really did suck after Harry left. Chip and Stoney are 2 pretty bad announcers and the Chicago Cubs (a premiere organization) kept them both around for so long. They’re doing the same thing with Brenly right now. Very odd. They could have their pick of almost any announcer and they choose the bad ones and then stick with the bad ones.
mb21
December 1, 2009 at 4:10 pm
@mb21 I’m sorry…you lost me at, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Stoney (is) a pretty bad announcer.
Are you serious? Have you ever even WATCHED baseball? If you think Steve Stone is bad at offering analysis of a baseball game, I’d suggest you tune in to ESPN on Sunday nights and witness the absolute trainwreck that is Joe Morgan’s Baseball Knowledge. I’ll give you Chip, but alleging that Stone is a pretty bad announcer is just ridiculous.
As far as Chip being a little worse than Len…that’s an unfair premise. You make it sound like Len is BAD at his job…which he’s not. He’s decidedly pro-Cub, which is fine…it’s what he’s paid to do…but he also offers insight into what else is going on around baseball, something Chip has NEVER been able to do, and he calls a game accurately…some Chip has proven he cannot do.
All of that leads to this: Bob Brenly is a BAD ANNOUNCER???!!!!! I’m sorry sir/ma’am but that is off your GD rocker effing crazy talk. I’ll simply point out that he was arguably the only thing that kept the Cardinals series broadcast remotely tolerable since they paired him with Dick Stockton.
Just out of pure morbid curiosity…what is your favorite announcing duo right now?
If you say Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, all I’ll say is this:
What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
mattlacasse
December 1, 2009 at 4:19 pm
What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought.
As opposed to your typical fanboy response about Stone being great, Len being great and everything in Cubbie blue rocking the world?
Steve Stone sucks. That is precisely why the man could not get a job and had to have a radio show for awhile. Or I suppose we can go with your version of him being good and there being 30+ networks that broadcast baseball failing to understand his great wisdom. Yeah, that must be it.
Most announcers suck. Some more than others, but very few are any good.
Oh yeah, my “incoherent, rambling response” was 123 words. Your response was 284 words. I apologize that 123 words seems too long a comment for you to read. I’ll try to keep them shorter than 5 words from now on.
mb21
December 2, 2009 at 2:23 pm
You call it fanboy opinion, I call it an opinion based on a career in the media and knowing what the difference between a good and bad announcer is.
I’m sorry you didn’t pick up on the Billy Madison joke at the end of the post, it was meant more as a lighthearted poke in the ribs.
As for why Stone didn’t land anywhere outside of Chicago, I believe you might be missing a couple of key factors:
1) A job would have to be open. Very rarely would an organization fire someone because someone else becomes available.
2) Stone really enjoys it in Chicago.
3) In between his time with the Cubs and the White Sox he has been a regular during weekday ESPN broadcasts…so I guess he did get a job after all.
So, I’ll ask again. Your opinion of Stone is just that; an opinion. As is mine. I’m still genuinely curious as to what your definition of a GOOD broadcaster is. You’ve made it plainly obvious that you believe 99% of the people in the broadcasting world suck, I want to know who you believe doesn’t suck.
Matt
December 2, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Of course it’s an opinion. I never said otherwise. You’re the one who acted as if it’s wrong, which implied your opinion was right
Please, if teams really thought Stone was a good color announcer they’d have created an opening and since he left the Cubs there have been at least a handful of jobs available and he wasn’t even considered.
As for who I think is a good announcer, it’s not relevant to this discussion, but since you’re so interested, Vin Scully. Vin’s the best there is. There are a few others that have their moments, but the job of being an announcers requires one to be mostly stupid because they’re speaking to mostly stupid people. Steve Stone never told you anything you didn’t already know. Neither has Bob Brenly or Len Kasper. These guys are talking to the lowest common denominator. Take a look at how Len acts when he brings up an advanced metric. Good for him doing so, but talk about it as if you know what it means and what it tells us. Tell us something about the metric or don’t bring it up. Instead, he brings up some sabermetric stat and then talks about their being a divide in baseball thinking when there is no divide. The sabermetricians won. The battle is over. They’re employed by every MLB team and all of them are looking to hire more. The only divide here are with the unintelligent, but that’s exactly who these guys are speaking to.
I’m curious, what exactly has Steve Stone said that you didn’t already know? When I was a child I learned a thing or two listening to him, but I unfortunately found out as I grew up and became interested in sabermetrics that he was full of shit and had no idea what he was talking about. I do not consider passing on knowledge that is not correct to be enlightening. Steve Stone makes people dumber than they already are. It’s 2009. There’s tons of information out there and anybody willing to spend 30 or 40 minutes can fact check anything Stone says in a game they’ll find out when it comes to his opinions that he passes off as facts that he’s full of crap.
Sorry, but i don’t respect the people who help make baseball fans dumber than they already are. Stone is a liar who is content with being ignorant. There’s far too much of that in this country already.
mb21
December 2, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Ok, So your argument is that Vin Scully is the last good announcer out there essentially, and everyone else sucks.
I disagree, we’ll leave it at that.
Matt
December 3, 2009 at 8:59 am
No, my argument is that Vin Scully is significantly better than any other announcer. As I said, there are a few others who stand out and have their moments, but few of them are any good. The difference between Scully and someone like Kasper is that Scully talks to the audience as if they have a clue. Those who don’t (which is most fans) have no idea what’s going on (most fans don’t). Kasper talks specifically to that group of people. Scully talks to the more intelligent group while Kasper (and most announcers) talk the least intelligent fan.
It’s always been that way and it will always be that way, but it’s why most announcers suck. I don’t listen to enough other announcers to say whether or not they are consistently good (exception being Scully). If you’ve ever paid attention to baseball fans, they all hate the other team’s announcers. Brewers fans and Cardinals fans think Kasper and Brenly are retarded just as Cubs fans think their announcers are dumbasses.
With all due respect, I’ll take their word over what the home team’s fans think. The opposing fan looks at the cubs announcers entirely different than Cubs fans do. Cubs fans (all team’s fans) get attached to their announcers. They begin to associate great moments with things like Len squealing in excitement as he calls a home run. They’re far too biased to take seriously. That is not true with the other team’s fans to the same extent.
mb21
December 3, 2009 at 10:54 am
Does it help that most of the Cardinals fans I know (and I know a ton as I live in the heart of Cardinals Country) despise the TV broadcast of the Cardinals and love Mike Shannon and John Rooney? I actually enjoy listening to Shannon and Rooney…except when they’re playing the Cubs, for obvious reasons.
I understand that Vin is one of the all time greatest, I do. It’s like saying Babe Ruth is one of the all time best. I love listening to Vin as well. But to say other announcers suck simply because they don’t discuss the intricacies of sabermetrics on a daily basis is a little disingenuous.
Broadcasters are playing to a wide group of people, hence the word broad in their job description. What guys like Brenly and Stone add to the game for me is insight into what is actually happening on the field at that moment.
I’ve never played an inning above JV high school baseball. And while I consider myself somewhat intelligent, there are things Brenly, Stone, and several other former players that are now broadcasters, see that I miss, or paint in a new light for me and help me understand things much better.
I think you enjoy the game in a manner differently from myself; that being your enjoyment of the game is increased through stats. There’s nothing wrong with that, and sabermetrics have done a great deal to increase my enjoyment of the game as well. However, when it’s the bottom of the 12th inning, Soriano is up to bat with the bases loaded…the only stat I care about is what the count is. Guys like Brenly and Stone offer fantastic insight into what is happening in that moment; then and there. Is this a little less cerebral? Perhaps. But they are doing their job by playing to the greatest common denominator: the greatest number of people who will understand what they are talking about. I don’t think it’s their fault for doing their jobs.
Matt
December 3, 2009 at 11:20 am
I don’t care if they discuss sabermetrics at all. In fact, I’d rather they don’t. They’re not bright enough to understand them and they explain them incorrectly (if they even explain them) so all that is being done is people are being told something that is incorrect. Brenly wouldn’t be that bad if he just gave some analysis, but he always has to give his opinions, which are archaic. I’m shocked that Len Kasper hasn’t beaten Bob Brenly with a stick yet. Brenly is one of the dumbest announcers on television. He’s up there with any of them. He makes people dumber just as the FOX broadcast team does.
I asked you before and I’ll ask again, what exactly has Steven Stone taught you about baseball that you didn’t already know? I can’t stand Brenly, but there is at least the occasional moment or two during a season where he says something that I’ve never considered. Stone states the obvious over and over, adds his archaic opinions to the broadcasts, which are usually just plain wrong, but is well spoken enough that he comes off as an intelligent analyst. He’s not.
mb21
December 3, 2009 at 11:35 am
People have no idea what bad announcing is. Rick Rizzs and Bob Rathburn–that is bad announcing. Chip Cary reminds me of the warm gentleman they replaced: Ernie Harwell. Never had a problem with Ernie’s missed calls and have none with Chip’s. I don’t need show biz people to tell me what is going on in front of my eyes in a ball game. Their contribution is color, analysis, and keeping track of the score. Caray is excellent at all that.
David A. McCullough
December 3, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Most of the good broadcasters are the radio guys anyway. Pat Hughes and Bob Uecker are two of the best. Harry Kalas was good too, and of course most of the old school TV guys all started in radio (Scully, Caray, etc.).
As far as homer stuff goes, I think Santo’s a terrible broadcaster but I (usually) enjoy listening to him, mostly because he and Pat have such great chemistry. I don’t really feel it with Len and Bob (who I’m also not a big fan of, though not quite as much as MB21), but from what I heard Stockton and Brenly worked quite well together in the playoffs. Chemistry does matter a lot more in the broadcast booth than it does in the dugout (dying laughing).
berselius
December 6, 2009 at 10:02 am