Aug 14
Last night I spent the evening with the boys at a Tennessee Smokies Minor League Baseball game. The Smokies are the AA Minor League team in the Chicago Cubs system. What to my surprised eyes would appear outside the press box for the 7th inning stretch, but a blow-up caricature suit depicting Mr Caray as "Harry Canary". It felt like heresy. If I were a Chicago Cubs fan with deeper roots I am not sure if I could have withstood it.
"Harry Canary" proceeded to regale the crowd with his frightening version of Harry's famous "Take Me Out to the Ballgame", a performance any Cubs fan of the day would look forward to at every game. This rendition however was a sad impersonation any neighborhood yokel would pull off after having had a few. I sat stunned with what I was seeing and wondered what some of my Chicago friends might think of the spectacle. Somehow it just didn't seem right to me. I wondered too, what would Harry Caray have thought to know he would one day be impersonated by a blow-up cartoon canary at a minor league venue somewhere in eastern Tennessee. Maybe he would have loved it. I wonder...
Apologies to Chicago friends and especially Chicago Cubs fans!
I would never have thought I would see the great Harry Carey, heralded baseball announcer who ended his career with the Cubs, caricatured as a canary!?
