CHICAGO (CNN) – Fans remember Harry Caray as a beloved Chicago Cubs broadcaster who was famous for singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretch.
But he was also as big of a Cubs fan as they come, his grandson says.
“Every game meant something to him,” Josh Caray said Thursday morning on CNN’s “New Day.” “Every game was an opportunity, he thought, to get the Cubs closer to a title. So it always hurt when they lost.”
On Wednesday night, the Cubs finally did it. They made history by winning their first World Series title in 108 years, edging the Cleveland Indians 8-7 in dramatic fashion in extra innings.
Like all diehard fans, Caray, who called Cubs games for 16 years before his death in 1998, believed his team would get there someday.
“Sure as God made green apples, someday the Chicago Cubs are going to be in the World Series,” he famously said in 1991.
Caray was known for his oversized glasses, his exuberant “Holy Cow!” catchphrase, his everyman persona and his fondness for Budweiser.
After the Cubs’ historic win the brewer even re-aired a classic 1980s Budweiser TV commercial featuring Caray sitting in the Wrigley Field bleachers and enjoying a Bud with fans.
The ad was fitting, because Josh Caray said that’s pretty much how his grandfather would’ve celebrated the Cubs’ long-awaited championship.
“He would have taken off his headset, gone down to Wrigleyville and probably had a Budweiser … or about 12 of them,” he said.
Josh Caray said the Budweiser spot, while only an ad, actually spoke volumes about his grandfather’s character.
“To be out there with the fans — that’s who he was. He really related to the common man,” he said. “And that’s what made him so special, not just for Chicago, but across the country.”