HE WAS A storyteller at heart, and so, on a day when those who knew him told stories of their own, we must start with the man himself. It was 1998, and Harry Kalas was attempting to kick his cigarette habit. As a substitute, the legendary announcer had taken to fingering cigars in the booth. While attempting to explain the allure of his new habit to fellow broadcaster Chris Wheeler one afternoon, Kalas settled on what he felt was a rock-solid justification.
Like all of the words that traveled through his gilded vocal chords, ink and paper don't do them justice. And yet, even in print, they resonate.
"Wheels, smoking a cigar is like falling in love," Kalas said that day, echoing an old Winston Churchill quote. "You are first attracted to its shape. You stay with it for its flavor. But always remember: Never, never, never let the flame go out."
Yesterday, at 1:20 p.m. at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, the flame went out.
Harry Kalas, whose voice served as the backdrop for millions of lives, collapsed in a broadcast booth at Nationals Park and was pronounced dead shortly thereafter. He was 73.
Kalas is survived not only by wife Eileen and sons Todd, Brad and Kane, but by legions of baseball fans who spent all or part of the previous 38 seasons listening to his smooth baritone and iconic home-run calls. Funeral arrangements are pending.
"We lost our voice today," said a visibly shaken team president David Montgomery, before the Phillies' 9-8 win over the Nationals.
It was a voice that was 6 decades in the making.
Born on March 26, 1936, in Chicago, Kalas grew up in the sleepy town of Naperville, Ill., listening to radio broadcasts of Cubs, White Sox and Cardinals games. But the Washington Senators were his true love, thanks to a chance encounter with Delaware County native Mickey Vernon before a game against the White Sox at Comiskey Park. A 10-year-old Kalas and his father were sitting behind the visitor's dugout when Vernon spotted him in the crowd, picked him up, and brought him into the Senators' dugout.
"Thus began my love of baseball and the Washington Senators," Kalas, a 2002 Hall of Fame inductee as winner of the Ford C. Frick Award, once said when relaying the story.
His love affair with broadcasting did not begin until his freshman year at Cornell College in Iowa, when a blind speech professor named Walt Stromer encouraged him to pursue the craft. Kalas obliged, and spent the rest of his college days pursuing a future in radio.
After transferring to the University of Iowa, he joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, where he honed his broadcasting abilities on stages slightly smaller than professional baseball stadiums.
"He would practice broadcasting when we were playing touch football in the yard," said Robert Hornaday, a fraternity brother who now lives in Charlotte, N.C. "He would practice during intramural games. When Iowa had a basketball game he would broadcast it into his wire recorder and he would come home and critique himself."
Hornaday said Kalas worked hard to deepen his voice and gain the signature tone that Philadelphians have long associated with baseball.
"We thought he was crazy," Hornaday said. "Who knew?"
After graduating from Iowa in 1959, Kalas joined the Army and was sent to Hawaii, where he later took a part-time job as an announcer for the minor league Hawaii Islanders.
His first big break came in 1965, when the newly renamed Houston Astros hired him to join their broadcasting team. One of the Houston executives who hired him was Bill Giles, now the Phillies' chairman.
"Harry was a special friend of mine and my family for 44 years," Giles said in a statement. "Baseball broadcasters become an integral part of baseball fans' families. They are in the homes of fans every day for the entire season. No one will ever be able to match the joy Harry and Richie Ashburn brought to our fans for all those years. He had a great voice, understood and loved the game, and loved people. That's why I brought him here in 1971. My family and I and all of our fans will always have a place in our hearts for Harry."
In 1971, Giles hired a 35-year-old Kalas away from Houston to replace longtime Philadelphia broadcaster Bill Campbell, a move that drew the ire of many local sports fans. The early days were not easy. An Inquirer story on July 11, 1971, reported that executives at Channel 17 "weren't exactly overjoyed at viewer reaction to Harry Kalas." In April 1975, Phillies players began a boycott of the pregame show hosted by Kalas and Ashburn, unhappy with the $25 gift certificate they were being offered as compensation.
Campbell said he never held a grudge against his successor. In fact, when Campbell was honored by the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia as its Man of the Year in November, two broadcasters served as his sponsors. One was longtime Eagles play-by-play man Merrill Reese. The other was Kalas.
