Kalas's Voice Will Resonate for Years to Come

I never knew Harry Kalas, never heard him do play-by-play on Philadelphia Phillies baseball games on radio or television, even though he'd been employed by the team for nearly 40 years and was as much a fixture in the City of Brotherly Love as greasy cheesesteaks, soft pretzels and the Rocky statue at the Art Museum.

But I certainly knew of Harry Kalas, and could recognize his mellow voice on a moment's notice. You probably could, too, if you ever listened to him narrate the weekly football highlights on "Inside the NFL" on HBO and Showtime from the show's inception in 1977 through the 2008 season.

Remember all those Campbell's Chunky Soup commercials featuring Donovan McNabb and LaDainian Tomlinson, among others? That was Kalas on the voice-over, as well. And if ever you watched the season highlight film for your favorite NFL franchise, Kalas was the man who could make a 2-14 Detroit Lions franchise sound like a world-beater, even if the whole NFL world was beating on them week after week.

Kalas died on Monday at Nationals Park as he was preparing to broadcast the Phillies' game against the Nationals. He was 73, with a distinctive voice many always said had to have been sandblasted smooth by years of the occasional good whiskey and chain-smoking bad cigarettes.

"In the 46 years of NFL Films, we have worked with two of the greatest voiceover talents in television history," Steve Sabol, a Philadelphia area native and longtime president of NFL Films, said in a statement. "John Facenda was 'The Voice of God' and Harry Kalas was 'The Voice of the People.' His substance was his style. There was no shtick, just a steady blend of crisp articulation and resonance. In many ways, Harry is the narrator of our memories. His voice lives on not only on film, but inside the heads of everyone who has watched and listened to NFL Films."

Not to mention several generations of baseball fans who watched and listened to Phillies radio and TV broadcasts since 1971, when Kalas first arrived in Philadelphia.

"We lost our voice today," Phillies President David Montgomery said Monday, and Philly baseball fanatics, even casual followers of the team, could only nod their heads in agreement.

What is it about these longtime voices of baseball, who always seem to lift our spirits in the good times, often reminding us of so many memorable summers and falls gone by.

If you are a baseball fan, you hear that same friendly voice come into your living room or your car radio as many as 200 times a year, what with spring training and the postseason. They're probably root, root, rooting for the home team, just as you are, even if their partisanship is ever so subtle, though sometimes not. And of course, the very best have a way of turning a three-hour ballgame into a daily passion play, simply with the sing-song pattern of their own special delivery.

On Monday, I was driving back from Augusta, Ga., and the Masters when the scan button on the car radio picked up a Nationals affiliate station in southern Virginia. I'd already heard the sad news of Kalas's death, but listening to the actual ballgame, a 9-8 thriller won by the Phils, made those final 2 1/2 hours of a very long Interstate 95 trip far more palatable than most alternatives. By no means are Charlie Slowes and Dave Jageler, the Nats' competent radio broadcasters, quite ready for induction into the broadcasters wing of the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. But on that day, they turned a tough drive into a pleasant, easy-listening experience.

As for some of those broadcasters already in the Hall of Fame, in my own mind, I can still hear mellifluous Mel Allen doing the Ballantine Beer commercials on New York Yankees broadcasts or bellowing "going, going, gone!" his signature home run call. Phil Rizzuto had "Holy Cow!" Chuck Thompson was "Go to war, Miss Agnes," and Red Barber crooned about the "catbird seat."

Sadly, they're all gone now, as is Kalas's signature "outta here!" home run call and his most famous and probably favorite call of all, from April 18, 1987: "Swing and a long drive! There it is, number 500! The career 500th home run for Michael Jack Schmidt!"