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I grew up not far from Wrigley Field, went to literally hundreds of Cubs' games, and saw hundreds more on WGN-TV (when WGN was only local, free, and they broadcast almost all the games, home and away).

To me, the Voice of the Cubs will always be the late, great Jack Brickhouse, the voice I grew up with. To me, Harry Caray was the Voice of the Enemy :-) , i.e., the Cardinals and, later, the White Sox. It's a shame that more people now associate the Cubs with Caray than with Brickhouse.

Weirdly enough, where I lived on Long Island (after my parents moved us out of the Bronx in 1963), there were times I could pick up radio broadcasts of games as far west as Chicago. Occasionally I would hear Brickhouse and I liked his way with the game. Likewise Bob Prince, the longtime voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Curt Gowdy when he was still doing Red Sox games. There was a time when, if the Pirates were playing in New York, you could sometimes pick up their home radio station broadcast pretty clearly on the beach, and I sometimes liked switching the Met/Pirate game to their station to listen to Prince when Bob Murphy or Lindsey Nelson weren't on the radio side of the Mets' broadcast.

I can't really knock Harry Caray. That he's so identified as the voice of the Cubs comes as much from fortuitous timing as anything else. If I'm not mistaken, Harry Caray joined the Cubs right about that point where WGN was going superstation. I think something similar happened to Tim McCarver - he joined the Mets' broadcast team right when the Mets' longtime station, WOR, went superstation for the 80s - when I was in the Air Force and stationed in Omaha (HQ, Strategic Air Command), I was surprised and pleased that my cable TV system offered both WGN and WOR, giving me plenty of Mets games and no few amount of Cub games to enjoy. (Oh, how P.O.ed I was that the Red Sox hadn't gone superstation or, if they did, that they didn't think of Omaha!)

The Mets team of the 1980s was damn near as good as their longtime original team of Nelson/Murphy/Kiner: Tim McCarver, Steve Zabriskie and Ralph Kiner. Zabriskie was replaced by Gary Thorne (better known for his NHL broadcasts) for a time, and Thorne was excellent with the Mets, especially on radio. I thought it was pretty stupid of the Mets to dump McCarver a few years ago - because he wasn't "positive" enough (read: shill enough) - and bring in Tom Seaver, who had been a Yankee broadcaster for several years and, while serviceable enough, it's fair to say of Seaver that as a broadcaster he was the outstanding pitcher of his generation.

Ralph Kiner's home run call: Deep to right...way back there...going, going, it is gonnne goodbye!

The Red Barber call that Chris Berman appropriated for his own: And there's a long drive into left-centerfield, Gionfriddo going back, back, back, back, back, back, back, back, back, he makes a one-handed catch against the wall! (Stumpy Dodger outfielder Al Gionfriddo took a long extra-base hit, possibly a home run, away from Joe DiMaggio in the 1947 World Series.)

Vin Scully calls the biggest heartbreak in Red Sox history, 1986 World Series: A little roller down first...behind the bag! It gets through Buckner...in comes Knight and the Mets win it!

And, the complete Russ Hodges call of The Shot Heard Round The World: Hartung, down the line at third...Lockman, not too big of a lead at first but he'll be running like the wind if Bobby hits one. Branca throws - there's a long drive, it's gonna be, I believe - The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! Bobby Thomson hit one into the lower deck of the left field stands. The Giants win the pennant. And they're going crazy. They're going crazy! Ooohhhhh, boy!!!....I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I do not believe it. Bobby Thomson hit a line drive into the lower deck of the left field stands. And the Giants, all the lot of them, the Giants win the pennant, by a final score of 5-4, and they're picking Bobby Thomson up and carrying him off the field.

The beauty of the Hodges call: No one knew that a tape of the call even existed until, apparently, a fan who had recorded the game sent a copy to Russ Hodges himself...and thus into posterity.