The day the voice died...

A beer, the Phillies and my couch. That is how I like to spend my Sunday afternoons in the summer. Lying on the couch, allowing the voice of the Phillies to lull me to sleep with his baritone play by play....

The day Harry Kalas died I was in Florida (outside Tampa of all places). It was the last day of our trip, and we were headed to the pool for one last time before we caught our plane back to Philly. As I sat waiting for Cat (as I so often do), my sister in law sent me a text "Hey, did you hear Harry Kalas died?". I was shocked and saddended knowing I had missed his last broadcast .. but it was not until the plane flight home a few hours later that it really sunk in. The voice of the Phillies, hell... the voice of baseball that I have known for 32 years of my life was gone...

I have never understood why people would get so upset over the deaths of those they have never met. I've seen the footage of people in pieces when Lennon was shot, and I remeber my mother crying the day Princess Diana died... and just couldn't fathom why. But I can now.

Like many of us, Harry Kalas brought the Phillies into my home (and car) for years. From the call of Michael Jack's 500th when I was 10, to the infamous Joe Carter homerun when I was 17 to Brad Lidge's final strike of the World Series when I was 32- he has been all I have known.

One man's voice that could take us to the heights of ecstasy as he called a long fly ball to center field, or drop us to the pits of despair as that same fly ball falls short on the warning track. He will forever have a place in my heart as the man who kept me coming back day after day, no matter how bad the Phillies may have been.. if for no other reason than to hear the passion in his voice for a game and a city that he clearly loved with all his heart.

Safe travels Harry.. and as you once said about Chase Utley, Harry- You Are The Man!