Dear Daily Princetonian: Goodbye, HK, you will be missed

Unlike many of my fellow sports staffers, I didn’t go anywhere exotic this summer. Instead, I stayed here in Princeton, working on campus and listening to my favorite baseball team, the Philadelphia Phillies, on the radio. Though I had noticed it during the school year, it was only when I had time to consistently tune into the games that the loss of legendary Hall of Fame broadcaster Harry Kalas truly hit me.

There is something romantic about listening to a baseball game on the radio with a great broadcaster. It takes you back to an age when baseball, rather than football, was the true national pastime. Unlike most other sports, baseball can be understood through radio. As opposed to football, which fits the television screen extremely well, baseball does not televise well, since there’s not a camera angle that can capture all the action. With the radio and a good broadcaster, all of this camera switching is cut out. There are a limited number of possibilities for what can happen during each play, so a good radio announcer can effectively communicate the action on the field through deft play-by-play.

Harry Kalas was one of the great commentators. Most sports fans probably know him as the longtime voice of NFL Films, but Phillies fans have a much more intimate connection with him. Harry stated the action clearly and intuitively. His leathery voice would rise and fall with the plays on the field, and you always knew that he was paying his utmost attention to the game.

But what makes a commentator great is not simply his delivery of the action on the field. The great ones have always had personality. Harry belongs in this category with Phil Rizzuto, Vin Scully and the terminally ill Ernie Harwell.

There was something about Harry that was instantly appealing to everyone who listened to him. He perfected the mix of play-by-play and banter that makes superb broadcasters what they are. He was the kind of guy you welcomed into your room not only for the game but also for his stories. He was a friend.

It might be hard for someone who didn’t have that kind of connection with him to understand what his absence means, but for added proof, look at what the Phillies organization has done for Harry this year. After his sudden collapse and death in the broadcasting booth at Nationals Park on April 13, the Phillies immediately rescheduled the next day’s planned trip to the White House.

The team also added an “HK” patch on its uniform for the rest of the season, tellingly placed right above the heart. Finally, in place of what normally would have been an advertisement on the outfield wall, the team placed a picture of a microphone emblazed, again, with “HK.”

Harry was the voice of a city for 38 years, and it is not a stretch to say that he may have been the most loved man in Philadelphia. Many have known no other play-by-play announcer but him, and I know that all still miss him, even though it has been five months since his death. Even the players miss him. After clinching the NL East this year, the Phillies came back out and smoked cigars by Harry’s sign in the outfield. Phillies games are just not the same without him.

It is only fitting that the Phillies won the World Series last year, fulfilling Harry’s last broadcasting milestone in what ended up being his last season as their play-by-play announcer. While Harry was the announcer when Philadelphia won the 1980 World Series, at that time local broadcasters were prevented from airing the game. A letter-writing campaign to the MLB commissioner’s office after the victory, mostly on behalf of Harry, was part of the reason the commissioner rescinded this rule in 1981. Harry’s call of Game 5 of this last World Series was his swan song: It perfectly captured the feelings of Philadelphia fans after the Phillies won.

The only thing nicer would be if the Phillies could repeat, and win another one in honor of Harry.