As a lifelong Cubs fan, Harry Caray was a part of my life before I knew how to walk. He is inextricably linked to some of my favorite memories of summer afternoons with my grandfather. I feel like this was an exhaustive and loving tribute to him, warts and all. A must read for any Cubs fan.

It's been more than 20 years since Harry Caray died while still serving as the Chicago Cubs' main broadcaster after a long, long career in the business.

I suppose the best reaction to that is "Holy cow!"

Caray still seems a bit larger than life today, a figure that will put a smile on a face and prompt a bushel of stories from those who knew or listened to him.

Sometimes "larger than life" is another way of saying "exaggerated." Some of the stories surrounding Caray indeed have grown beyond the edge of the truth, while others have been confirmed to help fill out the legendary status.

Don Zminda took on the project of sorting it all out in his book, "The Legendary Harry Caray." He does a good job of setting the record straight.

Zminda is well qualified for the task. He's written a dozen books on baseball over the years, and he's been a well-known member of the Society of American Baseball Research for decades. Oh, and he's a Chicago native, so Zminda knows something about Carey and the teams he broadcast.

A look at the bare bones description of Carey's life would reveal that he spent 25 years as the announcer for the St. Louis Cardinals, achieving regional fame in the day through the team's vast network of radio stations. Then it was on to Chicago, where he spent 11 years with the White Sox and 16 with the Cubs.

That's quite a broadcasting career, but it sort of misses the point with Harry. He always seemed to be walking on a tightrope during a broadcast. Carey wanted his teams to win, but when they failed to meet his expectations the announcer wasn't above criticizing all those involved. In other words, a fan was behind the microphone - and all that implied. That sometimes led to dust-ups with management and team members, but it also led to a close association with fans - who thought like he did. As the sports business has grown, it has become more conservative - and that means that loose cannons like Caray have become less appreciated to everyone but fans.

Oddly, Caray might be best remembered not for any particular moment of broadcasting, but rather a song: "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." Bill Veeck, another legendary character who owned the White Sox during part of Caray's tenure, said that he always wanted an announcer to lead the singing of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh-inning stretch. Finding a personality who could pull that off, though, was difficult. Veeck found his man in Caray, who carried the gimmick from the South Side of Chicago to the North Side when he switched teams. The sing-a-long still takes place at Wrigley Field today, either through guest singers or a video of Harry.

Carey also was a man who knew how to have a party. Come to think of it, his appearance using prompted one. Carey's consumption of alcohol over the years was enormous, to the point where no one could keep up with him after games. It's quite surprising that he made it into his 80s, even if some of the stories about such postgame frivolity could be slightly exaggerated.

Zminda takes an objective look at some of the incidents that marked Carey's career - the disagreements with the bosses, the ups and downs with the players, the feuds with other broadcasters. Sometimes announcers turn out to be the face of a sports franchise, and a few bumps in the road are to be expected. Even so, there's a reason Carey has a statue just outside Wrigley Field.

This book arrives with only a couple of complaints. A few points are repeated along the way, so one more edit might have been nice. The story also doesn't carry a great deal of fun along the way, leaning toward the dry side. There are other places for that; Steve Stone's book ("Where's Harry?") about working with Caray is a good example of that. But Harry was, at the base, a fun person to hear. I missed that part of the story in this biography.

"The Legendary Harry Carey" certainly accomplishes its goal well of separating fact from fiction. My guess is that longtime listeners ought to enjoy the way Zminda connects the dots.

This biography was well researched and contained a lot of information that I hadn’t previously read in other books. The author’s attention to detail is evident in the writing. Highly recommend!

Harry Caray is one of the most famous broadcasters in baseball history. His lengthy career includes significant time as the lead announcer for three franchises – the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs. While Caray is best known and most popular for his time with the Cubs, this biography of the broadcasting legend covers his entire career thoroughly for each team as well as his early life.

Born Harry Christopher Carabina, Caray was raised in a modest manner in St. Louis with his siblings by his mother Daisy until she died of pneumonia when Harry was 14. He was also a good baseball player, which is covered in this book as well as his broadcasting ability. When he couldn’t accept a spot on the baseball team at the University of Alabama, he tried to enlist in the armed forces to serve in World War II. Due to poor eyesight, he was rejected but this led to his turning to baseball broadcasting.

Once Caray turned to broadcasting, both his life and the book were much more interesting. His break came when he was hired to do the games for the St. Louis Cardinals. He was already broadcasting in St. Louis as he was covering minor league hockey games, but his love of baseball and skill at keeping the attention of listeners made the Cardinals want to keep him for many years. The radio network for the Cardinals, led by 50,000 watt station KMOX, grew exponentially during Caray’s time in St. Louis and the author, Don Zminda, writes that a lot of credit was given to Caray for this growth.

Most of his years in St. Louis, which also included two years of broadcasting the St. Louis Browns, he worked with former catcher Gabby Street. While he rarely had a negative thought about Street, the same cannot be said for many of Caray’s future broadcasting partners. The book covers many of these strained working relationships which included other legendary baseball broadcasters such as Jack Buck, Milo Hamilton and later with the White Sox, Jimmy Piersall. Most of these relationships were later repaired to the point where everyone but Hamilton had much praise for Caray.

In a dispute that never was fully explained nor understood, including in the book, Caray left the Cardinals in 1970. He did radio work for the Oakland Athletics for one year before joining the Chicago White Sox, a gig he held for 11 years. His time with the White Sox was marked by growing popularity with the fans and in turn, the White Sox, who were on the verge of moving, became more popular with the city’s South Side residents. Like in St. Louis, much of this popularity is given to Caray and the author again gives a complete and balanced account of this opinion. The book also discusses in great detail his harsh criticism of White Sox players such as Bill Melton. This is another aspect of Caray’s career in which I believed Zminda handled fairly and in a balanced manner.

However, Caray’s legendary status was cemented when he joined the Cubs in 1982, leaving the White Sox and their pay television venture to continue broadcasting on “free” over-the-air TV with the Cubs and WGN. He was doing games in the bleachers at Wrigley Field and enjoying beers with the fans. He led fans in singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh inning stretch, which became bigger than the Cubs game at times. It is fair to say, and Zminda does so in several ways, that Caray was the reason the Cubs became so popular even when they were not performing well on the field.

His drinking and late-night lifestyle was as legendary as his work. Many people in the book, including his third wife and many broadcast partners, comment that they could not keep up with Harry. After a stroke in 1987 and other medical scares in later years, this was toned down, but Harry still kept up an active nightlife until very late in his life.

There is one more aspect of Caray’s career that Zminda handled very fairly and that was his many mistakes and malapropos late in his career. While that endeared him even more to many Cubs fans, it was drawing much criticism from other fans and also other baseball journalists, both in print and on the air. While many of these critics acknowledged his greatness, they simply believed it was time for Harry to retire. However, that never really happened as he stayed on the air with the Cubs through the 1997 season and he died before the 1998 season. That was hard on his family, not only for his loss, but he was scheduled to broadcast with his grandson Chip beginning that season. It was the one thing he wanted to do that didn’t happen. Otherwise, he led an amazing life that any reader who has heard of the man, whether that reader was a fan of Caray or a critic, will want to read about in this excellent book.

I wish to thank Rowman and Littlefield for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Fantastic exploration of the life and career of Harry Caray. Personality quirks, triumphs, controversies, shortcomings, and peer interactions are all covered in this book. The is an exquisite attention to detail on the life of Harry Caray, and this attention to detail paints the full picture of a beloved, but flawed individual. Any fan of baseball should give this book a read in order to gain a greater level of understanding of an iconic figure in the game's history.