Not much has gone right for the Athletics in recent years, both on the diamond and in the broadcast booth. But things are taking a turn for the better in 2026.
The A’s currently sit atop the AL West at 22-20 after failing to eclipse .500 in every season since 2021. And while hard feelings are still top of mind for most of the team’s fanbase after the controversial decision to leave Oakland for Las Vegas (with a three-year stopover in Sacramento to play in a triple-A stadium), the team offered fans something to feel good about this week.
Chris Caray and Stefan Caray, the fourth-generation sports broadcasters that are the great-grandsons of the legendary Harry Caray, called their first Major League series together for NBC Sports California this week, with the Athletics taking on the St. Louis Cardinals.
The Caray brothers, who are twins, are sons to Chip Caray, the current play-by-play voice for the Cardinals, making this series a bit of a family affair. Chip Caray’s father, Skip, was the longtime play-by-play voice of the Atlanta Braves, completing the lineage up the family patriarch Harry.
The Caray family does not have huge ties to the Athletics — Harry Caray called the club for one year in 1970 — but it is where Chris found his start in Major League broadcasting as a part-time play-by-play man filling in for Jenny Cavnar beginning in 2024. Stefan, on the other hand, calls games on radio for the Cardinals. The duo was grateful to be making their television debut together earlier this week.
The Caray twins share what their historic series in the booth together means to them 🥺💚 pic.twitter.com/aoiIsTLAeR
— Athletics on NBCS (@NBCSAthletics) May 13, 2026
“This is number one in my career up to this point, and it’s not even close,” Chris Caray said of the moment. “To get to share the booth with my brother, somebody that we’ve had so many memories in the minor leagues together, and now at the Major League level, I can’t wait for him to show his talent. And you know how it is Towny (Chris Townsend), you have identical twin daughters, they’re basically inseparable. You go to college together, you do everything together, you experience your failures, your successes together. And now, we get to reap the rewards of some great work by our predecessors, and we’re so grateful to the A’s organization for allowing this to happen.”
“Yeah, the always incredibly prepared Chris Caray hit me with the incredible statistic that it’s been almost a thousand days since we called a game together. I can’t believe it’s been that long, but boy what a great place and great time to get back in the saddle with him. I am just so, so grateful to the A’s organization for making this happen,” Stefan Caray said.
If there’s one team that needed to spice up its broadcast setup, it was the Athletics. The duo of Cavnar and Dallas Braden finished dead-last in Awful Announcing’s local MLB broadcast rankings last season, as voted by our readers, suggesting there was an appetite to refresh this booth.
If you’re the A’s, you can’t get much better than the Caray pedigree. And who knows? Maybe after this series they’ll want to keep two Carays in the booth going forward.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.