Farewell, friend
Just about the saddest day of my life was the day that I had to take my dog to the vet for the last time. I think yesterday came kind of close when I learned Harry Kalas died just before a Phillies game.
I’d lost a friend.
Companionship - just as with my dog, it’s what Harry brought to my life. Countless hours of listening to him describe the only game that really matters. Not just the home runs, though that’s what we’ll always remember. But the plain, joyous monotony of balls and strikes, of extra innings that stretch into the night, of ground-outs and pitching changes, of a lazy fly ball falling into leather.
It was the comfort of familiarity.
I’m one of those people who would rather listen to a game on the radio than actually watch it on the tube. The long pauses between pitches that allow the mind’s eye to imagine the dirt on the cleats, the red pinstripes, the flash of a fastball. Hi-def shots of replays from multiple angles can never replace the visceral bond you feel with a game described by a fellow human being.
It’s somewhat fitting that - in his last full season - he finally got to tell the story of a World Championship. Years from now, it’ll be Harry’s voice that echoes through our mind as Brad Lidge throws that final strike. It’s not victory, however, that I cherish the most when I think of him. Maybe it’s the Philadelphian in me, but what I think about is all those years of utter failure, of listening when the Phils were 25 games out of first place in late September and the lineup featured the likes of Ricky Jordan and Chris James and Shane Rawley - guys you hardly remember. Winning, losing - it meant absolutely nothing on that Sunday afternoon. The Eagles were on TV, but I’d rather listen to the bittersweet sounds of boys playing a game in the lengthening shadows of autumn.
Richie: Say, Harry, did you hear that archeologists recently dug up the grave of Beethoven?
Harry (ever the straight man): Really? No, I didn’t hear.
Richie: Yes, and you wouldn’t believe it, when they opened the coffin, there he was - Beethoven - furiously erasing the notes from a sheet of music!
Harry (supressing a laugh): Slider, just misses the outside corner, 2 and 1… So, Whitey, Beethoven was erasing the notes?
Richie: That’s right - he was decomposing!
It is no understatement to say, “You had to be there.”
Last year on opening day, Andy Musser - the third of the Phillies’ best-known trio of announcers - took me to ballpark and introduced me to Harry. I shook his hand and mumbled how nice it was to meet him. Fact is, after 38 years of hearing his voice, I felt we were already friends.
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