Kalas would often be recognized more by his voice than his face when he was on a road trip with the Phillies, and his dulcet tones became an integral part of football highlight films and television commercials during the last 32 years.
If you want to know how revered Kalas was at NFL Films, all you have to do is look at the photo tributes on the wall outside the audio room. You'll find Kalas alongside John Facenda and Jeff Kaye, two other legendary voices that narrated NFL Films highlights. Facenda and Kalas both had Philadelphia ties.
"You don't know how privileged I've been to work with two of the greatest narrators and voices in history," Sabol said. "As I was driving in my car coming back to the office, I was thinking about the two of them. Facenda was the voice of God. Harry Kalas was the voice of the people. Harry wasn't a class act because there was no act with Harry. He could sell anything with that voice, and he did. But the one thing he never sold was himself."
Facenda and Kalas worked at NFL Films together for about six years before Facenda died in 1983.
"Harry was the voice of the games that happened that week, and John was the voice of what happened during the year," Sabol said. "Harry could do whatever you wanted. He could be dramatic, poignant or funny. Whatever we asked him to do, he could do it on the spot."
Kalas had a long list of commercial credits, too. He used to joke about the Campbell's Soup commercials with the baseball beat writers. "Ca-ching, ca-ching," he'd say with a wry smile, comically explaining how each commercial meant more money in the Kalas bank account.
