Goodbye, Harry

By Steve Lienert

The Phanatic Magazine

When I went to college down at East Carolina University in the mid-90s, it was my first time that far away from home on my own.

I was in a strange place where I hardly knew anybody; people talked funny, loved NASCAR and ate from a fast-food joint called Bojangles.

There were no cheesesteaks, Eagles fans or anybody saying so much as “Yo” for miles. I missed home.

Yet every once in a while, I could tune into 1210 am and, with its’ apparently mega-awesome radio signal, I could catch a Phillies broadcast.

As soon as I heard Harry Kalas’ voice, I was home.

It made me feel like a kid again, when I my curfew was when the streetlights came on. I remember looking up at the ever-darkening sky hoping to stay out just a little later to play stickball with my friends.

Harry was on our radio then, too. We listened to him while we played in Our Lady Help of Christians (now Our Lady of Port Richmond) schoolyard at Gaul and Allegheny or while playing outside my buddy Chalie’s house on Chatham St.

When it came time to go home, we’d have to unplug our radio, but we wouldn’t miss a single pitch of the game. On the four-block walk home, about every third house or so, somebody would be listening to the game while sitting out on their porch or front steps.

Harry and Whitey (Harry’s old broadcast partner and fellow baseball Hall-of-Famer Richie Ashburn) walked us home.

For Christmas sometime in the early 80s, Santa Claus left me a new set of headphones, the big-box kind with the antenna and tuner on the ear. It was that time’s version of ‘wireless’ technology.

I would sneak them into my room with me at night and in the summertime, after my parents were downstairs for a while, I would put the Phillies game as low I as could and still hear it.

Harry and Whitey talked me to sleep so often that when baseball season ended, it took me a while to acclimate myself to fall asleep without hearing their soothing voices.

The best part was I was one of a thousand kids that were doing the same thing at the exact same time. Thousands more have done it since, a sort of fraternity of fans that consider Harry and Whitey as favorite uncles.

It’s rare that a baseball broadcaster can touch some many lives in such a profound way. We were lucky and blessed to have grown up with such a guy.

That’s why it feels like we’ve lost a relative today.

I’m sad I won’t get to hear Harry make another home run call. But I’m very, very happy for all the good times Harry gave me over the years, how he made it feel like home no matter where I, or he, was.

I am especially grateful to have been there for the ring ceremony last week at Citizens Bank Park. Forget the players – the guy that got the loudest ovation was Harry. As if on cue, everybody stood as one to give Harry the K a standing ovation. He shook off Carlos Ruiz twice before exaggerating a nod in agreement with the pretend signals.

He then one-hopped the offering right over home plate, a strike nonetheless. The crowd loved it and Harry walked off the field waving to us as if he just blew away some poor schmuck with a 98 mile-an-hour heater.

Somewhere, Harry is at the bar having a drink with his good friend Whitey, catching the Phillies game on the big screen. Larry Anderson said that while Kalas was receiving CPR after collapsing in the press box, his pencil sat just inches from his hand.

Harry was preparing for the game right up to the very end. It was his life’s work and his life’s love.

L.A. said it best: Harry was never going to retire. He went out the way he should.

He will be greatly missed and always fondly remembered.

It already ain’t the same without ya, Harry. It already feels a little less like home.

Steve Lienert can be reached at stevelienert@hotmail.com