Another Harry Kalas blog

For a very convoluted reason, listening to Harry Kalas call Phillies games often reminded me of my grandmother, my Mom-mom, who died in the spring of 1993. Here's how it goes:

Once, in college-- it must have been Labor Day weekend because I was doing ASP staff in the summers-- I left a Phillies game with my family a little early. We got in the car to head to the shore, and, as always, turned the radio to 1210AM to hear the final inning or so and the post-game. One thing about sports broadcasting that I really love is when the announcers will actually read ads themselves. It's such a throwback, so unselfconsciously corny. I can remember Richie Ashburn doing the same MAB Paints spot for years. But that particular night, the ad the struck me was for a cancer research non-profit that was doing a benefit of some kind. I don't remember the details at all, but I can still conjure up the sound of Harry's voice saying "the fight against cancer continues."

The fight against cancer continues. It sounded so odd to me, and in such contrast to the light-hearted and often celebratory things said at the close of a game. And right then, I thought about how those words might sting so bad for somebody who had just lost someone to cancer. Like we had lost Mom-mom, to a brain tumor. I'm not sure why my mind leaped to her like that. Maybe because we were going to the shore, and because I had and will always have a perfectly preserved emotional memory (not a cognitive memory, really-- not one precise event) that links these things together: summertime. The shore house. Baseball. Listening to baseball games on a clock radio in the back bedroom at the shore house. My Mom-mom. Her voice. Harry's voice. The sound of occcasional amateur fireworks, way off in the distance every night from July 1st to the 6th or so. Walking barefoot in the alley. My family. Coming in from the ocean and seeing the horseshoe of beach chairs where my family sat, and Mom-mom always, always, always there. Summertime- my childhood- Mom-mom is laughing. It's warm, and everybody is talking about the Phillies.

That's the connection, and today I'm so sad, because I know how much I am going to miss the way Harry K's voice took me back to that place. Since moving to Abingdon, I haven't been as totally removed from Phillies baseball as I thought, because weirdly, I can still get 1210AM out of Philadelphia at nighttime, all the way down the Blue Ridge, 500 miles away. Last summer, my little personal ritual was to listen on the way home from Wednesday night choir practice. I would be alone, and I would let the sounds coming from the radio-- including the particular flavor of AM static-- transport me to childhood, to the shore, with the Phillies, with my family.

It's not a secret that I don't have the steel-trap focus on baseball itself that my brother does. I never pretended to. What I've been thinking a lot over the last 24 hours is that I'm mostly a fan of baseball season, and the way it brings a city together, and the way baseball sounds and smells and feels. I don't remember a lot of specific calls Harry Kalas made, and I didn't even realize until last night that the phrasing of "this ball is OUTTA HERE" was Harry's thing. I just thought that's how everybody called homeruns. And, for real: I'm just as sentimental about the way he said the words "station identification" and "Tastycake" as anything actually related to baseball.

But, my god. I'm going to miss him.