Another little piece of my past got chipped away yesterday when Phillies announcer Harry Kalas died in D.C.
I’m not a Phillies fan, but I probably should be. (Frankly, after the last strike I’m not a devoted fan of any major league team anymore. Once it became clear the players and owners didn’t really care much about me I thought I’d return the favor.)
But the Phillies have been a strange subplot of my entire life.
I’m told that when I was very young I would often take naps curled beside my bed-ridden, Phillie-fanatical grandmother, falling asleep to Phillies broadcasts on the radio. I also spent more than a few Sunday afternoons seated on my uncle’s knee, watching games in black and white and having that Ballantine beer jingle they must’ve played between every half inning etched forever into my head. (”Take a ring, and then another ring, and another ring and you’ve got three rings…”)
But a childhood experience in — and subsequently lifelong affinity for — St. Louis turned me into a Cardinals’ fan. Besides, the Cardinals have a rich history. The Gashouse Gang. Dizzy Dean. Stan the Man. Lou Brock. Bob Gibson.
As for the Phillies? Their history was — at best, ignoble, at worst, embarrassing.
There’s the oversaturation factor. The local media fawns all over the Phillies. Much of the incessant blather on Philadelphia talk radio drives me nuts. And ever since I moved to Lancaster city in 1974 I have purchased a copy of the Philadelphia Inquirer every day I’ve been in town. So while I’m not particularly a fan of the Phillies I probably know more about them than any other team.
Familiarity, perhaps, breeds contempt. Sort of explains how I feel about Penn State, too.
Yet, while I had more than enough of the Phillies over the years, I never got enough of their announcers.
Sports broadcast journalism has always intrigued me, and Philadelphia has been blessed with some of the most entertaining announcers of all time. By Saam’s malaprops used to crack me up (”Hello, By Saam, this is everybody coming to you from…”). Bill Campbell, the consummate professional, seemed to be able to call every sport out there. I always thought if you invented a game, within 10 minutes Bill would figure out how to do the play-by-play. John Facenda, he of frozen tundra fame, is from Philly. Richie Ashburn joined the broadcast team in 1963 and fit right in. Harry arrived in 1971 and while the transition wasn’t totally seamless — replacing Campbell wasn’t easy — Harry eventually charmed everyone.
There were lots of great announcers in the 70’s. Vin Scully. Red Barber. Jack Buck. Mel Allen. I know I’m creating many errors of omission.
But none compared with Harry and Richie. The praise today will be effusive and I won’t dare to contribute to the platitudes. I’ll just say this: If there were two guys I’d have wanted to spend an afternoon with watching baseball on TV and drinking a couple beers, it was Harry and Richie.
They were the lucky ones — friends who got to hang out and do something they enjoyed. But more than that, they seemed to realize how lucky they were and never lost that perspective.
I shook Harry’s hand once, but I had the fortune to chat with Richie a couple times. The first was at Downey’s in Philadelphia around 1985. I was having dinner with a friend and noticed Richie sitting in the corner having a great and lively conversation with a young blonde woman. The restaurant had a blind piano player, guide dog at his feet, providing dinner music. At one point, Richie got up, went to the piano player, stuck some bills in his jar and requested he play “Chicago.”
The pianist’s head perked up and he exclaimed, “Richie Ashburn! I’d know that voice anywhere!”
As my friend and I left, I stopped by Richie’s table, told him I didn’t want to bother him, but wanted to let him know how much a part of my life he’d become.
Richie was what I expected. He stood up, thanked me, then introduced me to his daughter, Jan. She had recently turned 21 and they were enjoying a father-daughter dinner together, he told me with incredible happiness and pride. We all chatted for a few minutes — he didn’t need to but it seemed natural for him — and then headed on our merry ways.
Two years later when I heard Jan was killed in a car carsh I felt like I’d lost a member of my own family. In the two times I ran into Richie elsewhere in Philly after that I never mentioned that encounter. I couldn’t begin to imagine what her loss must have done to Richie. And now that I have a 21-year-old daughter I can’t comprehend how he got through it.
But get through it he did. I’m sure Harry helped.
Richie died in 1997 following a Phillies broadcast and Harry, devastated, soldiered on. He did so by telling great Richie stories. Here’s one of my favorites:
Apparently Richie absolutely hated doing the Phillies’ pre-game show. Complained about it constantly. Harry said one night the two of them were at the hotel bar when a working girl sat down and struck up a conversation. After a few minutes she told them that for $100 she’d do anything they wanted. Harry said without missing a beat, Richie offered, “How about the pre-game show?”
Of course Harry’s delivery made the story richer. For the past 38 years he made the lives of baseball fans — and football fans, having replaced Facenda’s “voice of God” at NFL films — richer, too.
Just as his obvious love of life and baseball made everyone who ever met him richer. To understand that, all you had to do was see Larry Andersen, disconsolate, break down on TV yesterday. Or hear Jimmy Rollins, who knew Harry relatively briefly but obviously respected him greatly.
And it’s not only the sports public who will suffer Harry’s loss. Gov. Ed Rendell said yesterday whenever he went to a charity event in the city, there was Harry giving his time as emcee, handing out autographs and telling stories. Rarely has a city’s persona become so entwined with a man who announced baseball games for a living.
And rarely has the life of a man who announced baseball games for a living become so entwined with the lives of so many generations.
But it did.
Today he is gone. And with him goes a part of our history and a part of our innocent youth.
Hard to believe, Harry.
