Former Cubs announcer Chip Caray is leaving Atlanta to do play-by-play for the Cardinals (UPDATED)

UPDATE: This move, reported earlier, is apparently actually happening. The original article is below.

Chip Caray, grandson of longtime Cubs/WGN announcer Harry Caray, was the Cubs’ TV play-by-play voice for seven seasons, from 1998-2004.

Per Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Caray, who has been the Atlanta Braves’ play-by-play announcer since he left the Cubs, has interviewed to be the next PBP voice of the Cardinals:

Sources said Monday that Chip Caray, grandson of legendary Cards announcer Harry Caray and part of an unparalleled sportscasting family tree, is a prime candidate to replace Dan McLaughlin as the play-by-play broadcaster on Bally Sports Midwest’s Cards telecasts.

Sources also said another strong contender, Seattle Mariners broadcaster Aaron Goldsmith, has withdrawn his name for consideration. Goldsmith, who went to high school at Principia Upper School, in St. Louis County, and college at Principia, in Elsah, Ill., declined comment.

Goldsmith, 39, and Caray, 57, are believed to have interviewed for the position.

McLaughlin left the Cardinals after the 2022 season after his third arrest for DUI.

Chip Caray was supposed to join his grandfather for “about 50 games” on Cubs broadcasts in 1998, but Harry passed away in February 1998, before the two men could work together. Harry Caray, of course, first made his name as a broadcaster in St. Louis, broadcasting Cardinals games on radio and TV from 1945-69 before a year in Oakland and a decade with the White Sox before coming to the Cubs in 1982.

Chip had a complicated relationship both with Harry and his father Skip Caray. The latter was a longtime broadcaster for the Braves before he died in 2008, and Chip’s parents were divorced, with him growing up in St. Louis:

“I didn’t really spend a lot of time with my grandfather — or my dad for that matter,’’ Chip said on an MLB Network feature on the remarkable career of his grandfather that aired in 2016. “And growing up in the suburbs in St. Louis, I’d rush home from school try to catch the seventh inning stretch to see who this crazy old man was with the glasses” singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

As noted above, Aaron Goldsmith (who you have likely heard on some Fox-TV games) has withdrawn from consideration for the Cardinals job, so it might very well go to Chip Caray, to fill the seat his grandfather once did.

I wind up watching a fair number of Cardinals games, as the Cubs’ division rival. If this happens, it’ll be a bit odd to hear a former Cubs voice doing games of their arch-rival.

As always, we await developments.

EDITOR’S NOTE: While the Cardinals and their fans are the Cubs’ biggest rivals, they’re also human beings. Please keep your comments respectful.