Which raises a question: What will happen to the game ball from Monday's wild, 9-8 win over the Nationals, the game that was played in numbed shock after Harry the K collapsed in the broadcast booth before the game and then passed away before the first pitch was thrown?
At the moment, it's sitting in the bottom of Brad Lidge's locker. The closer got it after nailing down the save. He said that he'd be more than happy to give it to whomever the Phillies see fit, but that nobody's approached him yet.
"We haven't thought about that at all," general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said after last night's scheduled game at Nationals Park was postponed by a cold and steady rain, the weeping of the baseball gods. "We've thought about 9 million other things, but we haven't thought about the game ball.
"It's a good thought. We haven't addressed it yet, but I'm sure we will in the next few days."
By the time the players arrived at the visitors' clubhouse yesterday, each uniform jersey had a small, round patch sewn to the front. The white letters HK were set against a black background.
Sadly, director of team travel and clubhouse services Frank Coppenbarger has had practice procuring such memorials in a hurry, having done the same for Rich Ashburn and third-base coach John Vukovich.
The first thing Coppenbarger did after receiving confirmation that Kalas had died was to discuss what sort of patch would be appropriate.
Then he called the R.J. Liebe Athletic Lettering Co., a Chesterfield, Mo., firm he's used before, to order the patches.
"I just told them what we were looking for," he explained. "They were the same people who did the patches for us when Vuk passed away, so they had an idea already."
