Harry Kalas Column

Originally published in The Daily Tar Heel, April 17, 2009. Click Here: Remembering The Voice I’ll Miss The Most to see the column in its original format (as it was intended to be read).

Monday afternoon, my friend Jeff sent me a text message from his house in our hometown of Voorhees, N.J., a Philadelphia suburb.
“Harry died,” he wrote.
Instantly, I knew who he meant. Jeff didn’t elaborate. Didn’t need to.
Harry Kalas. “The Voice of the Phillies,” Philadelphia’s home team. The voice of NFL Films, located 10 minutes from Voorhees in Cherry Hill.
The voice of our youth.
Listening to anybody broadcasting a Phils game besides Kalas felt like watching a substitute host on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. It wasn’t the same.
Remember, Tar Heel fans, occasionally having to curse the TV set during Billy Packer’s play- by-play instead of enjoying Woody Durham’s? For 38 years, that was any Phillies game without Kalas.
Right now, thousands of Phillies fans feel emptier than AIG’s piggy bank — myself included.
It’s a weird phenomenon. Most of us never met Kalas, yet we all feel that we lost a dear friend.
Think about Jeff ’s text: “Harry died.” As if we spent every day hanging out with the guy. Most likely, thousands of people sent that same text to their close friends and family, and the person receiving the text probably never replied, “Harry who?”
That’s amazing. This man connected with people, through the simple act of announcing baseball games, in a profound way.
What is it that draws us to sports media personalities such as Kalas, or Durham, or Howard Cosell or Vin Scully? Or outside of sports, to people like Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow or Johnny Carson?
We don’t know them, yet we sometimes feel closer to them than our own family members (especially in-laws).
People understood Kalas. Trusted him. Knew his style, his cadence, his “Struck ’im outtt!” and “Outta hereee!” calls like their parents’ “Dinner!” yells.
My singular meeting with Kalas sticks in my mind: Starry-eyed, pimply-faced, teenage me approaching a hometown legend with a red baseball bearing a white “P.” Still got the ball, and the memory.
The last time our paths crossed, though, was Halloween 2009. I know because I left Chapel Hill on Oct. 30 at 11 p.m., caught
the Phillies World Series victory parade at home, then made it back to Franklin Street 24 hours after departure. The last time I saw Harry Kalas, he was perched on a fire truck, beaming, a world champ. That made it worth the trip.
I can still hear his understated voice narrating my daily activities: “Rosenthal rubs his eyes. Top of the seventh hour. Goes into his stretch … leg swing, and he’s up, up, up … That boy is outta beddd!”
But Harry the K was more than a voice. He was 38 years of Phillies history.
Think about it: Kalas told the Phillies’ story, day-in, day-out, to three generations of fans. My dad was there for Kalas’ first Phillies broadcast, on April 10, 1971, when the team opened Veterans Stadium.
When the Phils moved to Citizens Bank Park in 2004, guess who occupied the broadcast booth? (The Phillies have now renamed it “The Harry Kalas Broadcast Booth: ‘That ball’s outta here!’”)
Kalas represented the Phillies as much as, if not more than, the red and white on the players’ uniforms, the “P” on their hats and the stadiums they played in.
Saturday morning at home plate, fans will pay their respects beside Kalas’ casket. Get this: Such an on-field memorial happened only twice before in MLB history — once for revered broad- caster Jack Buck, and once before that for a fellow named George Herman Ruth. Some people called him “The Babe.”
Know what? Buck and Bambino are in damn good company.
My friend Jeff flew back from Jersey to UNC on Wednesday. That entire afternoon, he must have looked at me at least five times, shook his head, and said, “Harry’s gone.” Had to convince himself of the unthinkable.
He said it wouldn’t hit me until I went back home and watched a Phillies broadcast without The Voice of the Phillies.
He was right. It won’t sink in until a Phils broadcast comes on, and some stranger’s face gives me the “Wait — that’s not Mister Rogers” reaction.
That’s when it’ll become real: