Cub fans may remember when Harry Caray was on the Cubs broadcast team. Some of you may remember when Harry had a stroke and took a break from broadcasting the Cub games for a while.
This all happened while I was at WGN Radio and our general manager, Dan Fabian, aka “The Memo Fairy,” had a brilliant idea on how to fill the gap in a fun interesting way while Harry was recovering from his stroke.
Fabian’s idea was to bring in celebrity guest hosts to help with the Cubs game broadcasts. The first fill-in announcer was comedian Bill Murray, who at the time was at the top of his game in the comedy business.
On a chance occurrence, I was headed to Marlene Wells’ office, WGN’s merchandising manager. While walking down the hall I turned a corner near her office and who do I run into but Bill Murray.
I didn’t miss a beat when I said “hi” and introduced myself to Bill because I already knew quite a bit of personal stuff about Bill through his brother-in-law, Mike Kelly. I had worked with Mike at the Chicago Tribune newspaper before I transitioned to WGN Radio which was also owned by the Tribune company.
Bill was very friendly and found it funny that this stranger knew so much about him and his experiences while dating Mike Kelly’s sister before Bill married her.
Marlene saw that we were having a grand conversation and asked me if I would be interested in helping Bill get to the WGN Radio broadcast booth at Wrigley Field to fill in for Harry Caray.
“Absolutely,” I said.
At the time WGN Radio was still located at 435 N. Michigan Avenue right across from the Wrigley building next to the Chicago River. Meeting comedian Bill Murray was not just a cool experience, but getting the opportunity to walk him across the elevated catwalk at Wrigley Field to the WGN Radio announcer’s booth where he filled in for Harry Caray was even cooler.
The best part was when Bill and I were walking across the old catwalk together to the announcer’s booth just a couple dozen feet above the Cub fans in the stands. Fans looked up saw Bill and went crazy. Then in true Bill Murray style, he paused, turned to the fans, looked down and just like the Pope, he blessed the crowd by making the sign of the cross. Everyone lost it and Bill calmly turned and continued to the booth to fill in for Harry Caray.
As I always say, there are no chance meetings.
