"Outta Here"

Harry Kalas died yesterday. To the uninformed he was the long time play by play announcer for the Philadelphia Phillies. To the rest of us he was a part of baseball history. He'd been with the Phillies for 37 years.

Radio play by play men are important not just to a baseball team but to the fans of that team. They become as identifiable as the colors and logos of the team. The days of announcers spending half a life time with a team seem to becoming to an end. The days of their easily recognizable broadcast styles are ending as well. Now everybody wants to sound like they're hosting Sports Center. Kalas' death brought us one step closer to that end.

Think about where all the great announcers come from. It's baseball. Look at the networks over the last few decades. When they needed announcers they looked to baseball. Vin Scully (Dodgers) was on NBC. Jack Buck (Cardinals) was on FOX. Al Michaels (Reds) was on ABC and is now on NBC. The list goes on and it includes Kalas. The NFL picked him for voice over work for NFL Films. That road only leads one way. You don't see basketball or football announcers being recruited for baseball. It's an art form. In baseball more than any other sport the announcer is painting a picture. It's theater for the mind of the thinking man. His voice rises and falls with the ebb and flow of the game and it draws us in. It's a form of music really.

Baseball also becomes a bigger part of the fan's life than other sports. Think about it. You might love a football team but you're only going to hear a game on the radio once a week for a few weeks each year. Baseball announcers are with you every night for an entire season; three seasons actually from spring until fall. For a young fan and even many not so young fans, that announcer is providing the soundtrack of your summers.

I remember getting a transistor radio for my birthday one year when I was a boy. I thought it was great that I could lay in bed under the covers and hear Lanny Frattare bring the Pirates games to me. When I discovered I could lay there and pick up Ernie Harwell in Detroit, Jack Buck in St. Louis or Marty Brenneman in Cincinnati I thought it was the greatest discovery since Columbus found his New World. I mean they were hundreds of miles away. If they were on the west coast broadcasting back to their home cities then on to me, that was even more amazing.

We don't have transistor radios anymore though. We don't have those legendary announcers like we used to either and as shameful as it is, most of us now wouldn't make the time to tune them in even if we did. Those of us lucky enough to have experienced that slice of life though have the memories. We can still play those sounds of summer in our minds.

In times past how a person died was very important. In the Civil War for instance if a soldier, particularly a commander died on heroically on the field of battle, he was remembered for dying a glorious death. A person was often remembered for how he died almost as much as for how he lived. Harry Kalas ended his career and his life by calling his Phillies to a World Championship last season; his last full season. He died yesterday in the press box getting ready for the Phillies game against the Nationals. He died a glorious death. Just like his call when a Phillie would hit one out, he's "outta here".