Kalas, Phils' voice: An account that resonates

The Remarkable Life
of Harry Kalas

By Randy Miller

Running Press. 336 pp. $24.95

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Reviewed by Bill Lyon

The Voice. First, and always, there was The Voice.

Marinated by a million drinks, smoke-cured by 2 million cigarettes, The Voice was a distinctive, soothing, resonant baritone pleasing to the ear, and evoking emotions of calm and reassurance.

The Voice was fully in charge and would guide us through whatever peril lurked in the night.

For almost 40 full seasons and more than 6,000 games, The Voice was inextricably linked to the professional baseball team of Philadelphia. And vice versa. Theirs was a love affair that endured - Harry Kalas and the Phillies - Harry the K and the Fightin's. Let no man put them asunder.

He achieved iconic status in his lifetime, which ended early last spring with his passing at 73. In a most appropriate and poignant sentiment, Phillies president David Montgomery said: "We have lost our voice."

Now, 11 months later, comes a biography: Harry the K: The Remarkable Life of Harry Kalas.

The author is Randy Miller, who has the credentials required for such an undertaking - beat writer covering the Phillies for a chain of suburban Philadelphia papers since 1996, and, like many media members, an occasional comrade-in-arms with Harry the K.

Miller's dogged reportorial skills are considerable and are on impressive display in a book that is unvarnished and unsparing, but also straightforward and balanced.

The subject himself, like the rest of us, had his flaws, and succumbed to assorted temptations - the staggeringly excessive imbibing (he was regarded as something of a medical marvel for his apparent immunity to a hangover), infidelity, smoking, and gambling among them, all of which are examined, though not salaciously. There is no trace of mean-spiritedness in Miller's writing.

But if the devil was perching on one shoulder, the angel was roosting on the other. For all of his fame, Harry the K was without discernible ego; he was the softest of soft touches, generous with his money and even more so with his time. He was genuinely grateful to the fans, and accommodated them all.

It was said that most everyone he met wanted to be his friend, and in turn he wanted to be friends with almost everyone he met. In every sense of the phrase, he was a people person.

The son of a preacher man, Harry Kalas was, we are told, something of a wild child early in life, and never really changed. Miller's meticulous and richly detailed research confirms that, and if there is a nit to pick with his work, it is the avalanche of repetitions, the re-re-re-introductions.

But Miller has gone to great lengths to unearth the sort of minutiae that provide credibility. By his count, he interviewed more than 160 people, going all the way back to Harry the K's high school days. He tracked down the woman Harry took as a date to a drive-in movie and then spent the evening announcing imaginary play-by-play of an imaginary baseball game.

Both of Harry's wives granted Miller repeated interviews and access to information and memorabilia. Indeed, you are struck by the unflinching manner in which virtually all those the author talked to responded. What comes through in almost every interview is the great regard in which Harry the K was held.

Miller's book will strike chords of recognition among Phillies followers, many of whom were raised hearing "Hard to believe, Harry." His long and hilarious association with Richie Ashburn is recounted. So, too, is the infamous falling-out with fellow broadcaster Chris Wheeler and the truce that was eventually, thankfully, forged between them.

Harry the K was not a journalist, not at least in the truest sense, for he owed his allegiance to his beloved Fightin's, who in turn came to realize that The Voice was better known than many of them. It also did not escape their notice that he didn't criticize them on the air.

"If you want to call him a homer, fine," says Larry Bowa, "but he genuinely wanted everyone on that team to do well."

In turn, the players granted him entrance to their inner sanctum - a seat with them in the back of the charter flights - confident he would never betray their trust. And he didn't.

The Voice, with that measured cadence and that unmistakably rhythmic pace, was recognized far and wide, and imitated, and he would accommodate the imitations: "Swing and a long drive . . . watch that baby . . . home run . . . Michael Jack Schmidt." And he would perform it himself, over and over, never giving the slightest hint that where he'd prefer to be was that place where he was happiest - a piano bar, holding court till dawn, talkin' baseball.

"Without them," he said of the fans, "we wouldn't have jobs."

And he was mindful of another debt, too - The Voice:

"It's God-given, pal . . . and I thank God for that every day."

For generations, The Voice was the connector, the umbilical between a baseball team and its narrator. Toward the end, The Voice began to slip. His health deteriorated. He died exactly where he said he would - in the booth, preparing for another game.

"I spent many nights awake in bed wondering which stories I should use and which I should leave out," Miller writes. "I wanted to tell Harry's story, yet not hurt his image.

"Through interviews with Harry's friends, family members, colleagues, and even his psychologist I attempted to make some sense of a beloved man who made some big mistakes and how he dealt with them and how, ultimately, he became an even better man late in life."

It was, he writes, a labor of love. That comes through.