It’s almost heresy to think it today, but the truth is that 38 years ago, I was not a Harry Kalas fan.
In fact, I resented this new guy calling the Phillies games on radio and TV.
I was a Campbell kid. The Phils booted an equally beloved Philly figure, Bill Campbell, to make room for Kalas.
I held that against Kalas for a long time.
My love of baseball came, as it did for so many, at my father’s side. My dad did not especially care for watching sports on TV. That was especially true for baseball. He would much rather sit outside on a warm summer night, a cigarette in one hand, a beer in the other, and the Phils on the radio.
All seemed right with the world when you looked out the window into the back yard and saw only that red glow from his cigarette and the dial on the radio.
I became my father’s son. There is nothing I enjoy more than sitting on my screened-in porch on a muggy summer night and listening to the Phils on the radio. Harry Kalas became the soundtrack of summer.
I will continue what some describe as the quaint practice of an admitted dinosaur, if this lousy weather ever warms up. But there will not be a night when I flip on that radio when I will not think of my father, and the love of the game he instilled in me.
It started with Bill Campbell. It continued for almost four decades with Harry Kalas. I have handed it off to my son. He is a creature of ESPN, he loves soccer, but last summer he became a baseball fan. I think that was in no small part because of the magic of a single voice: Harry Kalas.
The voice of summer is gone. The players come and go, but Harry Kalas was forever.
It could be fairly said that Kalas was the Phillies.
Thanks for the memories, Harry.
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