High hopes for a Harry Kalas sculpture

A drive is well underway to create a bronze likeness memorializing legendary Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas.

What began as a petition on Facebook has grown into a fund-raising project with small models already created by a professional sculptor.

The hope is to have a life-size statue that fans can pose with at Citizens Bank Park, said sculptor Lawrence Nowlan, a Merion-raised, Archbishop Carroll grad with studios in Vermont and New Hampshire.

The Facebook petition - which has 21,000 signees - went up right after Kalas died in April, and soon Nowlan, 44, was being encouraged to get involved.

His best known work is the likeness of Honeymooners bus driver Ralph Kramden at New York's Port Authority, he said.

"People started contacting me right away - all sorts of friends - and asked me about doing something like this," he said.

Norristown attorney Greg Veith, a friend of Nowlan's since grammar school in Overbrook, set up a nonprofit called Dear Harry Inc., and another friend, Todd Palmer, owner of Virtual Farm Creative ad agency in Phoenixville, set up a website, www.harrykalasstatue.com.

The logo gives a glimpse of an early working design for the statue, with Kalas casually leaning on a baseball bat.

Besides explaining the project, the site is set up to accept donations through credit cards or Pay Pal.

About $80,000 will be needed to complete the project, which can move along in phases as funds come in, Nowlan said.

"A piece of this magnitude would go for 100 grand," he said. "So there's a lot of donated time."

"It's sort of like we're building a house, and I'm the guy who's going to be a carpenter," he said, explaining that he expects to "dedicate six months strictly for doing this."

If all goes well, the work - all in bronze except perhaps for a coat of white paint on the shoes - could be finished by year's end, he said.

Once the statue is offered to the Phillies as a gift, the hope is the club will accept it and unveil it at Citizens Bank Park, perhaps early in the 2011 season.

Kalas' longtime buddy and broadcasting partner, Richie Ashburn, already has his own statue, out in Ashburn Alley, the food-court part of the ballpark named for him.

Maybe the Kalas creation could even go on a street or walkway named after him - if another Facebook petition has similar success.