For the Phillies, an ordinary day darkened by extraordinary loss

WASHINGTON - It started like any other day, like thousands of ordinary baseball days before it.

Shortly before 11:30 yesterday morning, Harry Kalas boarded the team bus that would take any members of the Phillies traveling party who weren't already at Nationals Park to the stadium. The rest of the broadcasting crew. Former general manager Pat Gillick. Clubhouse manager Frank Coppenbarger. Reliever Ryan Madson.

"We got on the bus and I said, 'Hey, Harry, how're you doing?' And he said, 'OK. All right,' " fellow announcer Chris Wheeler remembered. "It was just a normal morning."

The normalcy didn't last long. When the bus arrived, Kalas walked to the visitor's clubhouse to write down the lineups, then took the elevator to the seventh level and opened his briefcase, getting ready to call yesterday afternoon's game, the home opener for the winless Nationals.

A few minutes later, broadcasting manager Rob Brooks walked in to talk to him about plans for the game and found Kalas unconscious on the floor, his papers strewn around him.

Emergency medical technicians rushed him to George Washington University Hospital.

It was too late.

Harry the K, the Hall of Fame voice of the Phillies, was pronounced dead at around 1:20 p.m.

"Sadly, I must confirm that we've lost Harry," a red-eyed team president Dave Montgomery said shortly afterward in the eerie silence of the tunnel outside the Phillies clubhouse. "I've been with the Phillies for 39 years, and 39 years with Harry. As I said in this clubhouse, we lost our voice today. He has loved our game and made a tremendous contribution to our sport, and certainly to our organization."

There is no game scheduled today. When the team resumes play tomorrow night against the Nationals, their uniforms will feature a patch or armband in Kalas' memory.

Sadly, the Phillies have become adept at handling these situations. Beloved former player and broadcaster Rich Ashburn, Kalas' best friend, passed away after a game at Shea Stadium in September 1997. Beloved reliever Tug McGraw died in 2004. Respected coach John Vukovich was lost two spring trainings ago. Now Kalas.

Even before Montgomery's somber announcement, it was apparent that something had gone horribly wrong.

As word began to spread that Kalas had been taken to the hospital, the Phillies clubhouse was closed to the media. Montgomery had already arrived by then, his cab pulling up just as the ambulance was racing away.