Harry Kalas

Harry Kalas’ real name was Harold Norbert he was born in Naperville, Illinois on March 26, 1936. Kalas was an American Sportscaster.

In 1954 Harry Kalas graduated from Naperville High School and in 1958 from University of Iowa. Kalas started his career in 1962 sports-casting minor league games for the Hawaii Islands at that time he was in the United States Army and was stationed in Hawaii Islands. Kalas started his major league debut in 1963 with the Houston Astros.

On the first meeting with a halfhearted welcome due to his replacement of the popular Campbell, Kalas soon won the hearts of Phillies fans with his easy-going style, his mellow, baritone, leathery voice (which rose to great excitement upon great plays on the field or Phillies’ home runs, especially in key situations), his love of the game and also his accessibility to Phillies fans, for whom he professed a strong love.

For 38 years he was the voice of the baseball, voice of the Phillies but he was so much more to the people of Philadelphia, people who hung on every words he uttered Harry Kalas was not just a man who describes just a baseball games he was the soundtrack of their life’s from the Jersey shore to the kitchen table and to the voice of the neighbors answering machine. When something happened on a baseball field in Philadelphia didn’t felt that it really happened until or unless you heard Harry Kalas describe it.

He didn’t call very great moment in Phillies history but it felt like it he was there for the only two World Series Phillies won in a hundred and twenty-six seasons he was there for Mick 500th home run. Sir Peat Roses’ national recon 3,631th hit and a million little moment’s in-between. He put his un-mistakable hall of fame stand on every one of them. In 2002 Phillies center fielder Dug Grand Will hit an inside the park home run the first thing he thought about when he crossed home plate he said was “What Harry Kalas liked it when he described it?” So now that he is gone is that people wonder about every remember-able play in every Phillies game. How would Harry have called it in the final Home game Harry Kalas ever called he threw out the first pitch in the final pro-season game Harry Kalas ever called he watched his Phillies won the World Series. He put it all in everlasting words in the voice that was a gift from God.

But the greatest gift was Harry Kalas himself a gift to the city that loved him for 38 years and will never stop.

On April 13, 2009, earlier to the Washington Nationals’ home opening game against the Phillies, Kalas distorted in the press box, and was discovered around 12:30 PM. He was taken to George Washington University Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 1:20 PM.

Harry Kalas

Harry Kalas

Harry Kalas