A sad day for Philadelphia and baseball in general:
Early Monday afternoon, the Phillies and baseball lost one of its true legendary voices, as Harry Kalas, who had been the voice of the Phillies since 1971, passed away at the age of 73. He was in the booth at Nationals Park in Washington, preparing for the broadcast of what was the home opener of the Washington Nationals, who are playing the Phillies in a three game series (the first of which was about to start as I wrote this) when he was found having collapsed, passing away not too long after.
This was Mr. Kalas's 45th year broadcasting Major League Baseball, being a part of what was considered the Houston Astros's original broadcast team from 1965-'70 (although the Astros originally came into Major League Baseball in 1962 as the Houston Colt 45's). It was when Bill Giles left the Astros to come to Philadelphia to join the Phillies in 1971 that he brought Kalas with him. Kalas was in a ough spot as he was replacing another legendary announcer in Bill Campbell (who continued in Philadelphia for many years after that with the 76ers) and the fans at first did not warm up to Kalas. That would change over time, and for 27 years Kalas and the late Richie Ashburn (another legend with the Phillies both as a player and broadcaster) became one of the all-time great broadcast teams, working together right up to Mr. Ashburn's death in September 1997 in New York when the Phillies were in the middle of a series against the Mets at Shea Stadium.
As great as many broadcast teams have been (and to me, there were none better than the two I grew up listening to in New York during the 1970's in the Mets with Ralph Kiner, the late Lindsey Nelson and the late Bob Murphy and the Yankees with Bill White, the late Phil Rizzuto and the late Frank Messer), Harry Kalas probably meant more to Phillies fans than that of any other team, especially after the Phillies won it all for the first time in 1980, which Igot to see a lot of since in those days sine the cable system I had in Manhattan got the Philadelphia and Boston TV stations, so as a result I would get to see a lot of Phillies games when they were on WPHL-TV (Channel 17, where ironically the Phillies just returned to this year after being on being on WPSG-TV (Channel 57) in recent years) and the Red Sox on WSBK-TV (Channel 38) out of Boston. Since moving to Philadelphia in September 1986, for 22 full seasons I have gotten to hear Mr. Kalas call games for the Phillies and his signature style, especially his famed "outta here!" call on home runs. Many have impersonated Kalas over the years, but there was only one original, who fittingly was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2002 and since the death of legendary Cubs voice Harry Karay was one of the few announcers of a visiting team to be asked to do "Take Me Out To The Ball Game," a tradition the Cubs continue to this day at Wrigley Field during the seventh inning stretch (of course, Mr. Kalas was born in Cicago).
Mr. Kalas's fame was not limited to baseball, however. Besides working for the Phillies for 39 years (including the beginning of this season), for much of that time Kalas was also the voice of NFL Films, including what at different times were the NFL's signature highlight shows, "Inside The NFL," which through 2007 aired on HBO before moving to Showtime in 2008 and in syndication "This is the NFL" and "NFL Game of the Week," both of which ran a half-hour, along with many commercial voiceovers, especially if the commercials involved NFL players. Kalas also called football throughout much of his career, including Notre Dame Football games that were packaged into a truncated telecast via late syndicator Metrosports, but mainly doing NFL games on radio, something he continued to do up to and including last season for Westwood One. Kalas was almost as legendary for his football work as he was for his baseball work.
At least it appears Kalas passed away while preparing to do exactly what he anted to do, call a baseball game, which he had done not even 24 hours earlier in Denver where the Phillies were playing the Rockies before heading to Washington to play the Nationals. It also at least was fitting that Kalas got to call the Phillies winning their second World Series (last fall) before he passed away, and did so with the Phillies the reigning World Champions.
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