Memory: an amazing capacity, both imperfect and perfecting. Time makes you forget details and still manages to make the story better. Because it always seems like a hot summer night when you think about Harry Kalas, even through the rain. And you are always in your car, for some reason. And you are waiting for the light to change and Rich Ashburn has taken this conversational tangent that neither you nor Harry expected, and you can hear Harry trying to wedge a little play-by-play into the middle of the story, and then Whitey says something that makes you crack up, makes you laugh out loud, all by yourself in the car. And then you look over and become aware that there are three people laughing - you, the guy in the car next to you, and Harry.
Then, now. And in the clubhouse after the game, Ryan Howard said what everyone knew. "He is the Phillies," Howard said. "He is the voice."
There are people who thought he was slipping a little at the end. Hell, Harry thought he was slipping a little at the end. But the people who wondered whether it was time for him to retire did not grow up with the guy. All they heard was somebody who misjudged a few fly balls. They did not hear their youth. You can only feel sorrow for the people who did not get it.
Sports are the last great societal connector today - and a major league baseball announcer, every night for 6 months, has both an opportunity and a responsibility that almost no one else possesses. If you were Harry Kalas, you were the public face of a franchise for nearly 4 decades, but it is more than that. In a city like Philadelphia, to be truly successful, you need to be that face and also a mirror onto the fan base. You need to be emotionally invested and intellectually honest; talk about tightropes.
