Karl Klockars

I grew up on mid-80s Chicago Cubs baseball broadcasts.  Portions of my childhood are punctuated by exclamations of “Holy Cow!” and other such Harry Caray-isms.  I have made the jump since then to White Sox fandom, but that doesn’t preclude the fact that I have many memories of spending summer afternoons camped out in front of WGN watching Rick Sutcliffe pitch, Jody Davis catch, Ryne Sandberg field and Harry Caray…well, generally be Harry Caray.

Let’s fast forward to present day.  Every local news station spent a morning this week camped out at Navy Pier to do some in-depth hardnosed reporting about the opening of the new Harry Caray’s Restaurant.  Mr. Caray’s wife, Dutchie was out there, Mr. Cub Ernie Banks was on-hand, and there was much rejoicing over the new outpost for dining and revelry on the tumbleweed-choked food desert that is Navy Pier (yes, tongue planted firmly in cheek).

I didn’t get the chance to see every single second of coverage of this epic event, but what I did see managed to avoid one specific thing – any appearance of Mr. Caray himself, in terms of video remembrance.  Oh, there were goofy oversized plastic glasses and very likely steins of beer being hoisted bright and early, but I didn’t see anything about the career of the man who is the namesake of this, the third (I believe) location in an empire of Italian Steakhouses around Chicago.

All of this has made me wonder – are we forgetting that Harry Caray actually called a hell of a lot of baseball games for both teams in this town?

We pay a lot of lip service to the deceased gentleman, and every time someone does a terrible impression of him for a cable company, there is much outrage and handwringing and defense of the man’s memory.  But as we get farther and farther away from Caray’s actual lifespan, and his memory gets more diluted, are we going to get to a point where he’s just a cartoon, a restauranteur and a Will Ferrell impersonation?

I’m afraid we might.  Were I to commission a poll to do word-association around the words “Harry Caray,” I have a strong suspicion that the main response would be “beer.”  Followed by “big glasses” and probably only then “Cubs guy.”  We’re a little over a decade removed from Harry’s funeral and there are teenaged baseball fans who have never heard Caray call a game, will never understand the impact he made on Chicago baseball, never know much more about him than alcohol advertising and restaurants.

There is, of course, the argument that says that if not for the investors who threw a few hundred grand (a piece, I understand) behind the new location, we might have let his memory slide even deeper into the ether.  I suppose we should in some ways be thanking the board of directors for pursuing the opening – because god knows that a place like Harry Caray’s on a destination like Navy Pier will close only once the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse come thundering through town.

But consider this.  Google “Harry Caray” and the first result is two links for the restaurant.  Then you get a link to the Wikipedia page.  The first few video results are SNL impersonations of the doddering drunk uncle that he was percieved to be.  Hell, it took that Wikipedia page to remind me that he was the guy behind the popularization of the 7th-inning stretch tradition at Wrigley that has since been bastardized by Mike Ditka, Ozzy Osbourne and Jim Belushi.

Simultaneously, by expanding the Harry Caray restaurant empire, you dilute the essence of the man himself.  I personally have absolutely no idea what kind of relationship Mr. Caray had with food, although I tend to doubt that he was really all that interested in things like dry-aging vs. wet-aging of steaks and the like. (Note: I believe that Harry Caray’s is one of the only places you can get both a wet-aged and a dry-aged steak, which is actually pretty cool.)

We lose bits and pieces of Chicago history every day.  Someday, the Billy Goat will close.  Someday they might tear down the Picasso.  If Marshall Fields can fall, then truly nothing is safe.  Even…Wrigley Field.  Hell, even Hot Dougs is going to close at some point, perish the thought. And maybe I feel a little protective of the guy, since in appearance and in alcohol intake, he reminds me a little bit of my own grandfather, also long since passed.

So forgive me for hoping that even thought we’ve been inundated with goofy caricatures and dining ventures (which, in fairness, I’ve heard offer some pretty good food – I stopped in once and they wanted something like $6 for a bottle of Budweiser which immediately removes them from my roster of possible dining locations) that we still occasionally spend a second considering the contributions of the actual man who made this ever-growing posthumous legend.

*I’m not sure that this requires full disclosure, because I can’t see how it would affect anything, but the space that HC-NP moved into was where I spent a few short months waiting tables at the previous tenant’s restaurant, Joe’s Be-Bop Cafe.  If that place made it through multiple summer seasons, Harry Caray’s will no doubt last eons.