Harry Kalas, family friend
AMID the familiar music of the ice-cream man, kids playing in the street and the other sounds of summer in and around Philadelphia, many people brought along a couple of friends to keep them company on nights when they went out to sit on their steps or in their backyards. Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn dropped into the neighborhood each night and on Sunday afternoons, giving folks a couple of hours of baseball and conversation.
Though it's played without a clock, much of baseball lends itself to time and conversation. As Harry joined Whitey Ashburn in the great broadcast booth in the sky this week, I thought back to the time I spent with my dad and brother (sometimes mom, too), watching or listening to some not-so-good Phils teams in our living room.
STEVEN M. FALK/Staff Photographer
It was this time spent together that was Harry Kalas' daily gift to our family - and families all over this region. In this age of distracted attention, Twitter and 10-year-olds with media outlets, Harry's greatest power was to create a simple shared experience over a simple game.
His voice was so soothing that many of us turned on the radio in the dark, listening at 1 in the morning to those West Coast games as he put us to bed in Dodger Stadium.
He narrated our springs and summers, set the table at the barbecue, provided the conversation at the corner bar and punctuated some of the most memorable moments in our history with an exclamation point on the back of a voice of steady friendship. Harry was the friend who came over, not just to say hi, but to talk, to keep your attention.
In an era when we've so much of that in everyday life, the time spent with Harry and whoever you were watching the game with was quality time.
As the Fightin's turned us back into the City of Champions last year, I thought of how many kids in Philadelphia spent evenings with their families listening to Harry and talking between pitches.
Some of our young ones got to experience for the last time what many of us thought was a birthright - the best in the business treating us to a few hours with the Phils and with those who meant the most to us. My daughter was one of the lucky kids who got to stay up and share the magic of a late July game with her parents, learning to appeal to our softer side by asking to stay up until the seventh, when Harry got back from his break.
And thanks to him, how many toddlers walked around last fall saying, "Outta here!" in their little-kid voices?
Harry brought fathers and sons who may have sometimes had little to talk about to a three-hour bonding session where they used the time to connect again. He gave parents, grandparents and kids a seat at the game and a chance to share some time, even if they were stuck in a car on the way to somewhere else.
It may sound silly to some to suggest that a man describing a game that people were already watching could create a bond that brought people together. Unfortunately for them, they never watched or listened to Harry.
Among his many other remarkable qualities, perhaps no man in America was single-handedly responsible for more battery sales in the summer as Harry.
No man forced more people to bring a radio to listen to a game they were attending in person. No man emceed more charity events or answered strangers' requests to leave a novelty voicemail recording. Heck, I never met the man, yet he provided my wedding introduction just because wife wrote and asked.
We'll hear a lot of great Harry Kalas stories as we remember a friend who many of us never had the pleasure to meet in person.
And as much as we remember Harry's signature calls of "Outta here!" and "He struck'm out," his gift of time together with him and our families is what we all owe Harry a real debt of gratitude for.
So thank you, Harry. *
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