Phillies Icon Harry Kalas Dies

Remembering Kalas, a heavenly voice

By Bill Conlin
Philadelphia Daily News
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/
April 14, 2009

Longtime Philadelphia Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas receives the applause of the audience as he accepts the 2002 Ford C. Frick Award at the annual induction ceremony at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, in this file photo taken on July 28, 2002. (Reuters)

CLEARWATER, Fla. - On black-armband days like this, you think dark thoughts of loss, the sudden taking of comrades with whom you shared days, weeks, months, years, decades and generations, traveling with a ballclub as many intertwined lives were weathered like driftwood on a tropical beach that suddenly became storm-tossed and gray.

Rich Ashburn was taken from us after a Phillies victory in Shea Stadium Sept. 9, 1997. We all know where we were and what we were doing when news of his death in a Manhattan hotel room broke on Angelo Cataldi's WIP morning show.

Harry Kalas was taken from us after collapsing in the broadcast booth of a ballpark, Nationals Park, hours before the Phillies he loved so much for so many years were to oppose the Nats in their home opener. We will remember where we were and what we were doing when the news he had been rushed to George Washington University Hospital was overridden by club president Dave Montgomery's announcement of his death.

I am certain that Rich Ashburn was lining up a putt on the 18th green of some perfect golf course, muttering over the cruel injustices of the only game to ever beat him when his best friend materialized, still wearing the windbreaker the broadcast crew was issued for raw, windy days.

"Hard to believe, Harry . . . "

"Believe, Whitey, believe . . . Hard to believe you were gone almost 12 years. And I missed you terribly, pal, every day of those years . . .

"Well, now we're back together. Think you've got nine holes in you?"

Two imperfect men, so perfect together for 26 years. Two Hall of Famers.

One a brilliant athlete ravaged by diabetes.

The other a brilliant oral poet ravaged by the two Surgeon General warnings he chose to ignore.

Both socially scarred by the heavy imposition of taking on a major league baseball team as a surrogate wife.

"You didn't drink or smoke, Whitey, but you beat me to the finish line."

"Hard to believe, Harry. Shut up and putt . . . "

I heard of Harry's collapse from my son, Bill, who is approaching middle age. He was a little boy so long ago when the Conlins and Kalases were spring-training neighbors . . .

Suddenly, it was 1974. My wife, Irma, was helping Harry's first wife, Jasmine, with plans for Harry's 38th birthday celebration. "Braddy, you get back home and do your homework," Jasmine would yell every 5 minutes or so. But Brad Kalas, now an actor in California, would sneak back out and join older brother Todd, now on the Rays' broadcast team, and my kids in an early Space Age experiment.

Bill had captured a lizard and had placed him in a space capsule composed of a zip-lock sandwich bag. They threaded a kite string through a hole in the "capsule" and after several aborts that bounced the unfortunate reptile off the sand, the kite rose majestically and Belleair Beach had its first space traveler. The Kalas and Conlin kids were joined by Scott and Stevie Carlton, and Danny, Johnny and Theresa Shore, the children of Reds superscout Ray "Snacks" Shore, who later defected to the Phillies and became a member of the Bill Giles "Gang of Six."

When the kite re-entered the tropicsphere, the chameleonaut was dead and accorded a burial at sea. While ground control manipulated the kite, Harry sat at poolside, diligently studying the program for that night's races at Derby Lane, the puppy palace on the shores of Tampa Bay. "I gave Harry $2 to play a trifecta for me," Bill reminded me yesterday. "And it hit for $297.50 - the 7-5-1, Lorraine Whiz, Oversize and Monty Python."


Philadelphia Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas throws the first pitch before the start of the MLB National League baseball game between the Phillies and the Atlanta Braves in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania April 8, 2009. (Reuters)

There is nothing like the favor of a famous person to hermetically seal a special moment in memory.

Pete Conlin extricated another day trapped in the permafrost of 35 years.

"The Phillies were either off or there was no broadcast," my youngest son recalled yesterday. He recently became 2 years older than Harry was on his birthday in 1974. "Harry - we called him Mr. Kalas - took Todd, Brad, Bill and myself to River Country. I was in my carsick stage. There was a plastic cup that had half a dog-track 'walker' in the cup holder. I threw up into it and it really smelled. Harry put an Astros media guide over the cup and said, "Boys, we've had a little setback, but we're pressing on."

High Hopes at work . . .

I was a rookie beat writer in 1966 when a slender kid in a golf outfit approached me at the Astrodome batting cage. "Hi, I'm Harry Kalas, one of the broadcast crew," he said. I shook hands and told him who I was. He looked no more than 16 years old, so I figured he had won one of those high-school broadcast competitions and was there to do his inning. Harry was actually 30. I'm afraid I big-timed him a little that day.

Who knew that 5 years later, I would be conducting a Daily News reader poll asking who fans wanted in the radio booth, By Saam or Bill Campbell. Soupy had been unceremoniously dumped when Harry's good friend from Houston, Phils veep Bill Giles, persuaded Bob Carpenter to replace Campbell with this young voice from the Astros.

Campbell won in a landslide. But it was one of those hissing-up-a-rope deals that reflected public opinion while ignoring reality. And the reality was, By Saam and Atlantic Refining, the Phillies' major sponsor, were in a death-do-us-part arrangement.

So Harry had the anvil of being a total unknown replacing an extremely popular broadcaster. It took him about two mellifluous sentences to turn it around. And about two hilarious exchanges with His Whiteness.

One classic from among hundreds - this one in St. Louis on a postcard Sunday afternoon. The night before, after a long dinner hour at a riverboat restaurant moored adjacent to the famed Gateway Arch, Harry found it necessary to take a brief nap in the grass against one of the massive pillars of Saarinen's masterpiece. He was wearing a white suit, which became so grass-stained it had to be trashed.

(Harry, talking as the camera pans to a wide shot of the Arch beyond the Busch Stadium stands:) "There's the famed Saarinen Arch, the Gateway to the West." (Whitey comments:) "Harry, I know you've never been up in that Arch." (Long pause) "But have you ever been under it?" It was a long time before Harry could stop laughing enough to force out something like, "Not recently . . . "

There is a small landscaped tribute to Rich Ashburn at the Shipwatch Yacht and Tennis Club, where he was a condo owner from 1986 until his death. He was a fixture at the tennis club and the members planted a small palm tree surrounded by beds of bright flowers with a simple engraved tablet in front. It simply said "Rich Ashburn, Member" with the date of his death. Another recently deceased member, Richard Havener, shared the simple memorial.

On Whitey's birthday, March 19, Harry would come to Shipwatch each year to lead some of his friends and colleagues in a brief prayer.

And I think he might have said this yesterday when Harry took him by a stroke, curling in a 20- footer. After muttering, "Golden Years, my ass," of course:

"Thanks for all the kind words on my birthday every year. But do you mean to tell me a man who has his own plaque in Cooperstown didn't rate his own monument at Shipwatch?"

And Harry would have laughed the mellow laugh that punctuated millions of words spoken to you - and only you - during a hectic life he turned into an oasis for millions of his closest friends.


If Harry said it, it had to be so

By Bill Lyon
The Philadelphia Inquirer
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/
Posted on Tue, Apr. 14, 2009

Long time Philadelphia Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas speaks as he accepts the 2002 Ford C. Frick Award at the annual induction ceremony at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, in this file photo taken on July 28, 2002. Kalas, a veteran of decades behind the microphone who called more than 5,000 Phillies games since 1971, died on April 13, 2009. (Reuters)


Every time you heard that distinctive baritone, deepened by a million smokes and marinated like fine bourbon aging in oak casks, you felt something soothing and reassuring.

God's in his heaven, Harry the K's in the booth, and all's right with the world.

He was, for generations of Phillies fans, The Voice. If Harry said it, it must be so.

That voice was stilled yesterday. Harry Kalas, one of the true troubadors of baseball, died. He collapsed in a press box in Washington not long before the Phillies were to play the Nationals, and that site and circumstance seemed altogether fitting - if he could pick his exit, you know it would have been in a booth, readying for another game.

He was 73, and in those 73 years achieved the status of legend, a word that is tossed about far too frivolously but that, in his case, fit like a batting glove.

In his twilight, not every game, nor every inning, was as seamless and flawless as it once had been, but his body of work is absolutely staggering. The Voice is in the Hall of Fame on richly deserved merit.

His signature line, mimicked by a million imitators over the years, will live on long after. For we all know the lyrics by heart. Cue the chorus, children:

"Long drive. Watch that baby. Outta here. Home run. Michael Jack Schmidt."

Close your eyes, and it's a muggy summer evening and you've just tuned in to the Fightin's, and on the TV in your den and on the radio in your car, all you need hear is The Voice, and from the sound of it, without knowing the score, you can tell instantly whether they're winning or losing.

"I always felt it was a privilege," he said. "It was like the people were inviting me into their homes. That's quite an honor."

And so it is, and so it was that he treated it that way, with respect and reverence. Harry the K did play-by-play, and he not only did it uncommonly well, he spared us the histrionics and the shrieking and the rudeness that pollute far too many airways these days.

Harry the K was an oasis of calm in a roiling sea of nastiness and raging negativity.

He was, of course, the property of the Phillies, but he never played the role of fawning company shill. It was the Fightin's he wanted to win, but he credited the opponent when it was deserved.

Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas has a beer poured on him by former Phillies' center fielder Aaron Rowand, right, as he broadcasts from the field following the teams' winning the East Division Championship on Sept. 30, 2007.(AP)

He started with the Phillies in 1971, which means he put in some long years of hard time, having to describe many more losses than victories. But there was never the sense that he had been discouraged. Indeed, for many fans Harry the K was the face of the franchise.

"I just always tried to give 'em my best," he said. "I was hard on myself. If I stunk it out, I took that home with me."

Our last talk was in October, the time of the magic carpet ride, and invariably, as it always does, the conversation turned to absent friends. Most especially the man Harry called Whitey.

Richie Ashburn.

Theirs was a pairing for the ages. Harry Kalas and Rich Ashburn were, well, you struggle to get it just right. By turns they were hilarious, wry, dry, irreverent, informative, and unfailingly entertaining, all of it seasoned just right by an exquisite sense of timing.

Whitey would, from time to time, drift off course, confident that Harry would reel him back in before he floundered in deep water, and then Whitey would launch into another musing, punctuating it with his own signature line.

Hard to believe, Harry became as mimicked as Outta here.

They're both gone now, and we are all the poorer for their passing.

The stories will linger, and one Harry loved to relate was about the night Tim McCarver, a loquacious sort, as you know, was on the air with Harry and Whitey regaling them about pieces of ash that had been formed by the volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens.

Harry, take it away:

"Tim was prattling on about those pieces of ash and how some were rough while there were others that were smooth, and Whitey, you know, got that twinkle in his eye, the one where you know something's coming, and he took his pipe out of his mouth and he said: 'You know, Tim, I always thought if you've seen one piece of ash, you've seen them all.' "

And Harry the K laughed in that familiar resonant baritone, the one that you can now imagine doing the play-by-play in some Elysian field.

Maybe the best part of Harry was his ego. It was virtually nonexistent. He was a gentleman and a gentle man, most approachable, and utterly without airs.

He was a legend without acting like one.


Somebody stole the Liberty Bell today

By Bob Ford
Philadelphia Inquirer Sports Columnist
April 14, 2009

A moment of silence is observed for longtime Philadelphia Phillies announcer Harry Kalas prior to the National League MLB baseball game between the Phillies and Washington Nationals in Washington April 13, 2009. Kalas was found unconscious in the broadcast booth prior to Monday's game, and died at a local hospital. (Reuters)

Somebody stole the Liberty Bell yesterday, unhooked it from its case, and carted it off when no one was looking. We won't see the Liberty Bell ever again, and a part of us all, of what makes our city special, is lost.

They sawed William Penn from the peak of City Hall yesterday, too, right about midday, right about the same time. The planter's hat and the flowing coat, the beneficent smile bestowed upon his little green town. We won't look up and see Billy again, and the skyline will never look right.

A bulldozer rumbled down the parkway during the lunch traffic and it took out the steps at the Art Museum. Putting in elevators or some such refinement. No more running up the steps, no more lounging on the steps. No more steps at the Art Museum, and we always intended to take one more jog to the top and turn and see the city.

They filled in the Schuylkill and razed the boathouses, closed the pretzel factories, and turned off the cheesesteak grills. They closed Forbidden Drive, paved Fairmount Park, and made people stop parking in the middle of Broad Street.

It all happened yesterday.

The day Harry Kalas died at the ballpark.

"We lost Harry," team president Dave Montgomery said. "We lost our voice."

We lost Harry on the road, which is very nearly home to the baseball lifers like Kalas. We lost Harry as he was preparing for another game, this one in Washington. He would have had his scorebook and his notes in the booth with him, and the statistical numbers and columns that supply the canvas of a game for which artists like Kalas can add the brushstrokes.

He didn't get to see this game, but, probably, he had seen it before. He had seen them all.

The Phillies will do their best to honor him, but there is no statue that can be erected more impressive or lasting than the indelible body of Kalas' work. He was a comfort in time of need - and Phils' fans know all about that - and a friend in the darkness of a drive through the night. He was the narrator of a city's soundtrack, the background conversation at countless events in millions of lives.

People asked Harry to put his voice on their answering machines. They handed him telephones and asked him to wish their wives a happy birthday. They spun the radio dials, caught just a word, perhaps just a name - WAAAH-rin Cro-MAAAHR-tee - and knew where they were. They were at the corner of Kalas and Baseball, and there was no finer intersection at which to spend time.

Philadelphia Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas solicits applause after throwing the first pitch before the start of the MLB National League baseball game between the Phillies and the Atlanta Braves in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania April 8, 2009. Kalas, a veteran of decades behind the microphone who called more than 5,000 Phillies games since 1971, died on April 13, 2009. Picture taken April 8, 2009. (Reuters)

Harry's voice wasn't gravel, but it had an edge. It knew things and knew that you knew them, too. It wasn't a Philadelphian's voice, by any stretch. He kept the round Midwestern pronunciations he grew up hearing in Naperville, Ill. But Kalas liked to play with the words, to put them together and turn them into dramatic recitations that were his alone.

A simple baseball call like "Swing and a miss, struck him out" became a magical victory of good over evil, the emphasis punching through just as the ball had punched through the batter. That very phrasing was the final play-by-play from Kalas that most Phillies fans will remember, as Brad Lidge ended the 2008 season, and Kalas declared the team world champions.

We will hear it only in retrospect now, that wonderful instrument he possessed. Just as nature blesses pitchers with great arms and batters with great hand-to-eye coordination, something was given to Kalas at birth that he couldn't really take credit for, but he could certainly put to good use.

A couple of years ago, I was in line at the Wawa, getting some coffee, on the way to the airport and an Eagles road game. A dozen others shuffled around the store, look for their own coffee, getting through another gray morning. And then the voice boomed out, seemingly from the heavens.

"Aren't you sup-POSED to be in In-DEE-ah-NAP-olis by now?"

People almost dropped their coffee, and their eyes darted to the ceiling and all around. Of course, it was just Harry, three back in the line, holding his coffee, having some fun. And everyone had a story to tell when they finally got to the office.

"Hneh, hneh, hneh," Harry snickered.

He could laugh, but that snicker was more what he was about. It was the expression of an insider, someone who got the joke more than even the teller might realize.

Harry got it all. He got baseball, and he got life on the road. He got how lucky he was to have that voice that everyone knew and that manner that made everyone his friend. He got Philadelphia, got it so well that he became part of the civic landscape. He got us, and that's not easy.

The birds stopped singing in Rittenhouse Square yesterday. The tugboats on the Delaware couldn't sound their horns. When the carriage horses took their customers past Independence Hall, there was no clop-clopping on the cobblestones. The factory whistle wouldn't let anyone leave work. Kids burst from their school rooms and didn't utter a peep.

Philadelphia went quiet yesterday afternoon. Harry Kalas died at the ballpark, and the city lost its voice.


Beloved voice of the Phillies signs off

By John Gonzalez
Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist
April 14, 2009

NEW YORK - The great ones are supposed to live forever.

As I walked into the Citi Field press box for the Mets' home opener, I could hear people whispering. They were echoing the same question that my friends and family back in Philly asked when they phoned after hearing the terrible, heartbreaking news:

Did you hear about Harry?

Harry Kalas died yesterday in Washington as he prepared to do what he's done consistently and well for the last 38 years - call a Phillies game. He was 73 and in poor health, but everyone was stunned when he passed. The reaction was a mixture of sorrow and disbelief. How could it be anything else?

The mind tries to prepare you, to tell you that it's sad but also unavoidable, even for the legends. But the heart is never ready. Maybe it's supposed to happen, but not to the people closest to us - at least not for a long time. Not until some far-off tomorrow. But then tomorrow becomes today and today becomes yesterday and you still can't believe it's real. Shock is death's cruel companion.

Did you hear about Harry?

"There are no words to express the sadness that the entire Phillies organization is feeling with the news about Harry's passing," said Phillies president and CEO David Montgomery. "Harry was the voice of the Phillies, but he was also our heart and soul."

When he first came to town in 1971, he was Harry Kalas, the Phillies' new broadcaster. And then, before anyone knew it or realized it, he was just Harry - no last name or formal title necessary. Loved ones don't need those. That's what happens when you invite a person into your home year after year after year. He becomes part of your family, even if you've never met him face-to-face.

Back in 1987, I watched the Phillies play the Pirates on a tiny television in my bedroom. It had rabbit ears that worked poorly, and the picture was dreadful. But Harry, as usual, sounded great.

"Swing and a long drive, there it is, number 500!" Harry cried, making a special moment that much better. "The career 500th home run for Michael Jack Schmidt!"

That was my first real memory of Harry. I was 10 years old.


(L-R) Richie Ashburn, Andy Musser, Harry Kalas and Chris Wheeler.

It took 21 more years before I finally got to meet Harry in person. By then, it was almost as if I had known him forever. There were so many nights when it felt as though he was sitting on the couch next to me as he delivered his famous, trademark lines - "struck him out" and, better still, "Watch this baby . . . outta here."

It was during the NL Championship Series last year when he introduced himself. I was talking to Fox baseball analyst Tim McCarver in the press box hallway when Harry came over and said hello in his singular voice - the one that made him sound cooler than Frank Sinatra on the chairman of the board's best day. Before long, a mischievous, little-boy smile spread across Harry's face.

"Did he tell you about Pat the Bait?" Harry asked as he nodded at McCarver.

That's how I learned that Pat Burrell - otherwise known as Pat the Bat - was called Pat the Bait during his first few years with the club. Kalas said that before Burrell was married, the older players used to drag him out to the bars - OK, so maybe they didn't drag him, but you get the idea - so they could dangle him as bait to attract women.

"Can you imagine how many hearts Burrell has broken?" Kalas said. And we all had a good laugh.

It's impossible to explain how much that meant to me - standing there with Harry while he took the time to tell a story. It was like getting a gift that I never expected and wasn't worthy to receive.

After that, Harry would stop and chat for a second or say hi when we passed each other in the hallway. The last time I talked to him was after the Phils beat the Rays and won the World Series. He and thousands of merry, tone-deaf backup singers had just finished singing "High Hopes" at Citizens Bank Park.

Harry was standing on the field with the players and front office personnel and press. It was such a special night, and I just wanted to share it with him for a quick second. I went over and repeated the same thing I'd said to about 50 other people that evening: I waited my whole life to see a championship in the city, and I couldn't believe - after 25 long years - that it actually happened.

Harry nodded. His eyes looked a little red.

"It's a great feeling," he said. "You'll never forget this."

We'll never forget you either, Harry. You were wonderful and you were ours and you will be deeply missed.


A Tribute to Harry Kalas

By Tyler Kepner
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/sports/index.html
April 13, 2009, 6:53 pm

TAMPA, Fla. – Harry Kalas died Monday after collapsing in the broadcast booth before a Phillies game in Washington. He was the most beloved person in Philadelphia, and nobody else was close.

He was the voice of the Phillies for 38 years, spanning generations, narrating our summers. When we dreamed of baseball glory, we imagined ourselves hitting a home run with Kalas at the microphone, telling the world that ball’s outta here.

But it was really just our world, in Philadelphia. Everybody knew Harry, who was also the voice of NFL Films. But nobody knew him the way we did. The Phillies could be very good or very bad, but whenever they played, there was always Harry. However we felt about the team, we were always proud of that.

When the Phillies won the World Series in 1980, network rules prevented a team’s local radio broadcasters from calling the action live. The voice of the Phillies was forbidden from calling the seminal moment when Tug McGraw struck out Willie Wilson. As you would expect, the city strongly objected to this rule.

“The outcry of Phillie fans had M.L.B. change it,” Kalas told me last October. “They wanted to hear Harry and Whitey calling the World Series.”

He was referring, of course, to Rich Ashburn, the Hall of Fame outfielder known as Whitey who was Kalas’s partner from 1971 until his death in 1997. The Phillies’ broadcast booth was never the same after that, but Harry was there last Oct. 29, when the Phillies won the World Series again.

There was profound sadness Monday, but also relief that Kalas lived long enough to make one final and glorious call:

“One strike away, nothing-and-two count to Hinske. Fans on their feet. Rally towels are being waved. Brad Lidge stretches. The 0-2 pitch. Swing and a miss! Struck him out! The Philadelphia Phillies are 2008 world champions of baseball!”

If you knew Harry, it was obvious his health had declined in recent years. But he was there at Citizens Bank Park last Wednesday, resplendent in a red sports coat, tossing the ceremonial first pitch the day the Phillies received their championship rings. My mom was there, and felt moved to call me so I could hear the fans’ reaction. It was the last home game Kalas ever broadcast.

The booth at Citizens Bank Park is named for Ashburn, who was famous for saying on the air, “This game’s easy, Harry.” In a frame outside the booth is a shirt autographed by Kalas, with a Hall of Fame 2002 inscription.

At his ceremony in Cooperstown that summer, Kalas closed with a poem. I always considered it the height of class, and I reprint it here in honor of a man who can never be replaced:

“This is to the Philadelphia Fan
To laud your passion as best I can
Your loyalty is unsurpassed
Be the Fightins in first or last
We come to the park each day
Looking forward to another fray
Because we know you’ll be there
We know you really care
You give the opposing pitcher fits
Because as one loyalist shouts, ‘Everybody hits’
To be sure in Philly, there might be some boos
Because you passionate fans, like the manager, hate to lose
Your reaction to the action on the field that you impart
Spurs us as broadcasters to call the game with enthusiasm and heart
We feel your passion through and through
Philadelphia fans, I love you.”

– Harry Kalas, 2002


Philly Won't Be The Same Without Kalas

Hall of Fame voice of the Phillies died Monday at the age of 73

By Jason Stark
http://sports.espn.go.com/
April 13, 2009


In this Sunday, Aug. 18, 2002 file photo, Philadelphia Phillies announcer Harry Kalas waves to the crowd during ceremonies honoring the Hall of Fame broadcaster before the start of the Phillies game against the St. Louis Cardinals, in Philadelphia. Kalas, who punctuated innumerable home runs with his 'Outta Here!' call, died Monday, April 13, 2009, after being found in the broadcast booth before a game against the Washington Nationals. He was 73.
(AP Photo/Dan Loh)

PHILADELPHIA -- He was so much more than the voice of the Phillies. Harry Kalas was the Phillies.

He didn't just describe the games. His voice took hold of those games and made them his personal amphitheater.

The home runs weren't officially home runs until Harry Kalas told you they were outta here.

The long outs didn't make Philadelphia's hearts flutter unless the volume on every speaker suddenly quadrupled and Harry announced they've got … a … chance.

Strike three wasn't strike three until Harry The K gave it that little chuckle and reported some Phillies pitcher had just struck some poor, overmatched schmoe with a bat "right on outta there."

And when the impossible happened, when a World Series title run erupted in front of his eyes, his town couldn't be totally sure this mind-warping event had actually happened until the great Harry Kalas' golden voice exploded with the words: "The Philadelphia Phillies are 2008 world champions of baseball."

So here is what people like me, people who have lived most of our lives in Philadelphia, are wondering on this sad and tragic day:

How are we going to do this?

AP Photo/Tom Mihalek

Harry Kalas threw out the first pitch before this year's Phillies season opener.

How are we going to go on in a world with no more "outta heres?"

How do we fill the unfillable void that will hang over us forever now as we try to contemplate life, and baseball, without Kalas?

Can't be done. Can it?

The games will go on. The sport will go on. Voices will crackle out of our TV speakers. That's the way it has to work. That's the way it has always worked.

But we don't have to pretend it will ever be the same, because when you've spent 6,000 nights, over four decades, listening to Harry Kalas put his inimitable stamp on a baseball game, it's way too simple to say baseball will never sound the same.

Baseball in Philadelphia will never be the same.

I'm one of the lucky ones. I got to know one of the special human beings on this planet. It was one of the great thrills of my career.

Once, I was just one of the fortunate hordes who had the pleasure of listening to Harry Kalas. Next thing I knew, I was working alongside him.

Back when I was a rookie beat reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer and something memorable would happen on the emerald field below me, I'd often find myself thinking: I wonder how Harry called that one?

His voice, his presence, was that powerful. Even when you were witnessing something live, with your very own eyes, you still felt as if you were missing something -- because you hadn't heard Harry describe it.

If it had been only me thinking those thoughts, I'd have gotten therapy and tried to get that little voice out of my head. But it wasn't just me. Ohhhhh no.

Those players down there were way more addicted to that voice than I was.

Back on May 10, 2002, Phillies center fielder Doug Glanville hit an inside-the-park home run, the only inside-the-parker of his career. You know what he remembers about it now? Kalas' call of that magic moment.

The second he crossed home plate, Glanville said, "I wanted to hear him announce it. That was every bit as important to me as running around the bases."

Wait. Hold on here. You mean this man had just done something very few human beings have ever done, and all he could think of was the sound of That Voice? How can that be, you ask? Because it was Harry. That's how.

"Harry had that special gift," Glanville said Monday. "Just with his words and the emotion in his voice, he could take you to that game and put you right in that moment. If I was trying to explain to somebody what it's like to hit an inside-the-park homer, I'd say, 'Just listen to Harry call it.'"

But it wasn't only Glanville. When something big -- especially something really, really big -- came along, Kalas' voice towered over the event like a thunderclap from the heavens.

Let me transport you back to April 18, 1987. It's a day I'll never forget. I got to see Mike Schmidt hit his 500th home run that day. But that's not the part I'll never forget.

The scene that is lodged in my brain forever was a scene that took place long after Schmidt's emotional home run trot. The interviews were over. The players were all dressed. The bus to the hotel was almost ready to leave.

Then Harry Kalas entered the room.

It just so happened that he and his broadcast buddies had brought with them a tape of Kalas' still-indelible call. And so, right then, right there, life in that room screeched to a halt. Everything stopped. The bus could wait.

All 25 players gathered around the tape recorder. The "play" button was pushed. And here came That Voice:

"There it isssss. Nummmmmber 500. The career 500th home run for Michael Jack Schmidt. And the Phillies have regained the lead in Pittsburgh, 8-6."

They listened to it once, and they roared so loudly the walls shook. So then they listened to it again. And again. And again. And again. Screaming just as loudly every time.

That's when it hit me: Even they didn't realize what had just happened here -- not until they'd heard Harry The K put it into words.

Well, you know what? At least those words live. Still.

I heard them all over the airwaves Monday. It's the one consolation on days like this. Because Kalas did what he did, because he uttered his special brand of poetry into a microphone, the words live on.

We need them now. We need to hear those words again. And again. And again. And again.

We need That Voice because it has been such a constant in all our lives for as long as most of us can remember. And not just at game time.

When I heard the sad news Monday, I called my daughter Hali -- one of the great Harry The K fans on earth. Through the tears, she told me she had just changed the ring tone on her cell phone -- to the sound of Harry Kalas calling the final pitch of the 2008 World Series.

Later, my wife, Lisa, tried calling our neighbors, Bob and Karen Scheur, because we knew they'd want to know. They weren't in. But their answering machine clicked on -- and there was Harry Kalas' voice informing us that Bob and Karen had just gone on a lonnnnnng drive, and they were outta here … so please leave a message at the sound of the beep.

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

A moment of silence in memory of Harry Kalas was observed before the Phillies' game with the Nationals on Monday in Washington.

"The funny thing is," Bob told me later, "that in November, Karen finally said, 'It's time to change the tape.' So we did. But as soon as we did, my friends would call and say, 'Hey, what happened to Harry?' So when it was time for pitchers and catchers, we changed it back. It's one of the rites of spring. Harry's back."

I could relate to that feeling -- totally. In fact, my last conversation with Harry came just a couple of weeks ago, in Florida. Pitchers and catchers had reported weeks earlier. The games had been going on for nearly a month. But for the first time ever, those games were going on without Harry.

He'd had some medical issues, described as nothing serious. So the Phillies were muddling along without him as best they could. And then, one day, I was walking down a ballpark hallway and there he was.

"It's a Harry The K sighting," I said. "Now we can finally get this season started."

He laughed. We shook hands. We talked a little baseball. He was ready to go. And now, so was I.

But I was only half kidding. It wasn't baseball season without Harry Kalas -- not for me. And not for millions like me.

So now what?

There will be a season. And in time, I'm sure, we'll be grateful there's a season.

But it will take some getting used to -- because, for millions of Philadelphians, Harry was what baseball sounded like.

If there's a rhythm to the heavens, if there's a script to every life, then we can take some solace in knowing there was an amazing finish to Harry Kalas' script.

In the final game he ever called, on Sunday in Denver, Matt Stairs gave him one final, dramatic, game-winning outta here.

Before the final home game Harry ever called -- on Wednesday, when the Phillies received their World Series rings -- he was handpicked by team president Dave Montgomery to throw out the first pitch.

And in the final postseason game he ever called, he got to tell all those people who loved him that the Phillies -- his Phillies -- were "2008 world champions of baseball."

That was their moment. But he made it his moment. And that's only fitting because, for the people of Philadelphia, Harry Kalas didn't just describe their moments. He made their moments real.

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.