Fond Recollection of Harry Kalas, on the Anniversary of His Death


He said my name three times, one for each time I won the trivia contest. As I told Brad, the prize pack was always secondary… the real prize was having Harry say my name. In fact that’s how people congratulated me. It wasn’t- “hey, you won the trivia contest,” it was “hey, I heard Harry Kalas say your name!!!”

-I’m fine-tuned to pick up any political bias, and I have no more of an idea of Harry’s political persuasion than I do the hosts of C-SPAN. Wheeler once refered to “the trouble in the middle east” which doesn’t actually give away anything, but it does give away that the middle east is something that he thinks about. Harry never let anything slip, as far as I’m aware. His introduction to the first baseball game back from 911 really moved me. How on earth could he give us such a heartfelt message that everyone could agree on? It was this- resist hatred. I was there for that game.

-Of the 6000 games he broadcast, how many did I hear? Maybe 1000? I might have listened to his voice for several thousand hours of my life. Have I listed to anybody else’s voice more?

-I think that people who don’t like baseball because “it isn’t exciting” don’t recognize the value of the quiet times that allow for contemplation. Harry somehow filled those quiet times in a way that still allowed them to be quiet times. “Hello ladies and gentlemen, it’s a beautiful day out here at the ballpark and we’re about to get underway…” If you don’t recognize the beauty of those words it’s quite possible you’ll never understand baseball.

-Brad Lidge blew his first save tonight after 47 successes. I miss the “oh noooo.” It seems natural to be saddened by the phils’ loss, but I truly recognize something that Harry taught me- it’s just a game. (And anyway, Eric Gagne only got more saves by doing drugs.)

-Harry Kalas might have been the one unchanged thing since before I was born.

-One of the greatest moments of my life- I drove out to Indiana for the September festival, thus sacrificing the possibility of seeing the phils’ final games of the season… and they were in the middle of a pennant race, no less. Ten minutes away from my destination I turned on the radio and to my surprise, there was Harry Kalas’s voice. Six hundred miles from home and I had stumbled upon the voice of a friend. I arrived at my destination and sat there in the dark, listening. It was just him and I, in the middle of Indiana. I never met him but I never needed to. We were friends. And although I thoroughly reject the idea of any afterlife, I know that somehow we are still friends, and that we will always be friends.

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