April 17, 2009

For most of us, when we tuned in for a Phillies game, we expected to simply hear a baseball game, but we got much more than that.

When Mike Schmidt hit home run number 500, he made us jump out of our seats.

When Craig Biggio hit a late-game home run off of Billy Wagner in September of 2005, he made us throw our hands in the air with utter disgust.

When he pronounced the Phillies as the "2008 World Champions of baseball," we all teared up with the relief that comes with finally winning a championship after waiting for 25 long years to be called a city of winners.

And for all of the slow moments in between that a baseball game brings, his soothing, down to earth style made us feel like we were sitting on the front steps, talking to a neighbor, a friend, or a cousin, discussing the game as the summer days came and went.

Indeed, for many of us, listening to the great Harry Kalas was much more than just listening to a baseball game. It was almost as if we were there, in that booth, watching the game with the help of Harry's eyes.

Harry found a way to make the bad times bearable and the good times seem almost myth-like. He somehow found a way to make Von Hayes and Juan Samuel watchable, even though our eyes told us that they weren't.

Thus, as we mourn the death of Harry Kalas, we are not just reflecting on the life of some simple baseball announcer. We are celebrating the life of a comforting friend.

For me, he will always be the voice that allowed me to experience baseball long before I had actually attended a game. He will always be the person that allowed me to be a fan, even when I wasn't a paying fan. Even more than that, he will be the only baseball voice that I've ever really known.

Frankly, without him it will never be the same.

Sure, life goes on. Someone else will announce the games for the Philadelphia Phillies. Kids for generations will listen or watch baseball and get to know new voices. Time stops for no one. Losing a friend, no matter how painful the loss is to all of us, is nothing new. It is one of the more harsh parts of the human experience. It's simply a fact of life.

Still, for the two generations that Harry Kalas taught the thrill of the game to, as he nursed us along through summers at the beach or in the backyards of the Philadelphia area for miles around, we lost a good friend. We have forever lost our childhood summers. We have lost the drug-like replacement to the football withdrawal that we experience all summer long. And even more than that, we lost our link to the Philadelphia Phillies.

Listening to Phillies games will not be the same. For a while at least, they will be just games. We will still phase in and out of naps, but only because the game will seem boring at times. Just copycat voices that seem more like muffled imitations of Harry as we work on our cars in the summer. They won't be as comforting, because they will not be our friend, our summer voice, Harry Kalas to show us how a game should be experienced.

May he rest in peace.