Thanks, Harry the K

Long, busy day -- the kind of day where you feel like you never stop writing. Which is okay, because my job is fun. But now that it's over, and it's late, and I'm back from the ballpark, I feel like I have to sit down and write just a little bit more.

Because I'm really feeling this Harry Kalas news.

I didn't know Harry Kalas -- not the way the people who worked and traveled with him did. I met him a few times in the course of doing my job over the last 15 years. Knew him enough to say hi, shake hands, whatever. I loved hearing the Phillies writers tell stories of him singing at their weddings or recording messages for their answering machines and voice mails. I loved that it seemed like he was always already at the park by the time you got there in the afternoon. I'll never forget being in the Veterans Stadium press box with Sweeny Murti, early one sunny afternoon, and hearing Harry walk by and bellow, "Fellas it's a beautiful day for a ballgame!" in that unmistakable baritone.

"I feel like we should have had to pay for that," Sweeny said with the kind of smile Harry's voice gave you.

I loved how funny it felt the first time I caught the guy sneaking a cigarette in a back staircase at the ballpark, or how weird it sounded the first time I heard that voice drop an F-bomb. I loved that stuff because Harry Kalas' voice, as much as anything I've encountered during my time as a professional sportswriter, reminded me of when I was a little kid.

That voice was always on in my house when my brothers and I were little. My mother, the Phillies fan, had the games on all the time. Harry's voice was the soundtrack to my introduction to baseball. I remember it on the TV at my grandparents' house when we'd drop in for visits on summer afternoons.

And every time the grown-up me heard that voice -- whether it was on TV, the radio, a Super Bowl highlight reel, a Campell's Soup commercial or live and in person -- it caught me right in the heart. Brought back instant memories of a time long before I covered baseball for a living, a time when I was a kid with a Mike Schmidt glove playing third base in Little League.

It always reminded me of my mother, who was sad Monday when she heard the news because she's a Phillies fan, and they all loved Harry. They all felt like he was a big part of their lives.

It always made me think of my grandfather, who's been gone almost 15 years now, and how much I would have loved to have him around long enough that I could have talked to him about my job, told him stories from the clubhouse and the dugout and the press box. He'd have enjoyed it so much.

It always made me think of my grandmother, and the lunches she'd make for us (complete with cans of Yoo-Hoo!) with those games and that voice on in the background. We lost her just last October, still so proud and graceful deep into her 91st year, just two days after her favorite team won the World Series for the second time in her life.

Harry's voice always reminded me what baseball felt like when I first fell in love with it. It reminded me what it felt like to be six and seven years old. I think it's probably important to be reminded of that stuff, and while it would have felt corny to tell it to Harry, I always appreciated that he could do it.

So thanks, Harry. Like so many thousands of others who got lumps in their throats when they heard this news, I'm going to miss you.