How I Became a Baseball Fan

On Monday morning, August 4th, I was listening to the local Atlanta sports radio station, when I heard of the death of Skip Caray, the longtime Braves broadcaster and icon of sports in this city. I never met Mr. Caray, and he certainly had never heard of me, but I was deeply saddened by the news of his death, because it was Skip Caray's voice, that made me a baseball fan.

I began following and playing baseball in the spring of 1993, when I was in the first grade. My dad had always been a Braves fan, and the franchise had really turned the corner in 1991, going "from worst to first," and going to consecutive World Series in 1991 and 1992. Because of this, it could be expected that at 7:05 or 7:35 almost every week night, if you drove by our house, you could see the likes of David Justice, Ron Gant, Otis Nixon, Mark Lemke, Jeff Blauser, John Smoltz, Tom Glavine (I could go on and on) on our tv screen, as we watched each game on TBS.

Each night the Braves played the same inspirational opener before going to the broadcasters who would introduce the starting lineups for that night's game. I, as a new baseball and Braves fan, had the opener memorized, and most of it has come back to me in the last two weeks. With the appropriate images on the screen, I would hear "Back goes Nixon up on the wall....and he's got it! Unbelievable catch," (cut to Ron Gant hitting a homerun), "Kiss this one goodbye it's a slam!" And the grand finale, possibly the greatest Braves call in history, a video and audio replay of Sid Bream's ninth inning slide into home plate in 1992 (click on the link to listen to Skip yourself), which won the game for the Braves, making them National League champions.

Now I had a nightly ritual that accompanied this opener which involved our hallway which led into our den, a pink exercise mat, and some new carpet my parents had recently purchased. Each evening I would head to the end of the hallway and listen to Skip Caray's voice narrate the opener. When I heard "one run is in, here comes Bream" I would take off from the end of the hall headed toward the den. When I heard the line, "here's the throw to the plate," I would dive, head first, onto the pink mat and slide across the carpet just as Skip said, "he is....safe!" Then, rolling onto my back, I would kick my arms and legs with each "Braves win!" Skip exclaimed with excitement.

Skip Caray made baseball exciting, and his voice has always made me think of summer, of mosquito bites, of sunscreen, of suicides (the drink) after baseball games, of father/son trips to Turner Field, of vacations to the beach. Thank you Mr. Caray, for helping me understand baseball, for helping to make it exciting. Thank you for being there when I became a Braves fan.