Old Man Walking Delivers Eulogy
May 7th, 2009 | By Bill Culleton | Category: Athletic Support
OUTTA HERE!
Baseball lost a great announcer last month, Harry Kalas. In Philadelphia, where he came to fame, there was a full week of mourning. Harry was honored in endless video footage, eulogies and TV retrospectives. He even lay in state at Citizens’ Bank Park - the first time a baseball figure was so honored since the Babe lay in state at that famous House of his own making.
I watched and mourned along with all the other die hard Phillies fans. I remembered the 1980 World Series, when the Baseball moguls decided that only national broadcasters could call the games, and Phillies fans inundated corporate offices with protests (many no doubt expressing colorful linguistic equivalents of that good old Philadelphia “boo”.) I grieved to lose Harry’s unique baritone voice, his emotional “calls”, and the famous “Outta here!” I joined the collective pride at Harry’s national stature, including his familiar voice-over work for NFL Films’ weekly roundup.
Harry was, as the testimonials proved, a great guy, humble, kind to strangers, and a man with a great sense of humor. His pub crawls were epic, his cigars odiferous, and his devotion to baseball so transcendent that any mortal must stand in silent reverence.
What a voice! It was unique in all of broadcasting. It was deeper than most, flowing like honey with rich overtones. Its sound alone could cancel any reverie: the normal concentration on the road, the search for All Bran in aisle fourteen. Like Pavarotti or Enya, it was a voice with a name already attached. Instantly, when you heard it, you would greet its owner by name, as if he had just walked into Cheers at the beginning of a show. “Yo, Harry!”
Still, at the back of my mind - behind the on-the-twos reruns of Harry’s call of Mike Schmidt’s five hundredth home run, and the sound track of “High Hopes”, his favorite song that he performed with or without request in any and every public gathering - hidden in that cold, skeptical corner of my misbegotten, college educated, piercing, critical mind - was a small voice saying, “I really did not like Harry’s “Outta here” call, and I hated “High Hopes.” Bless me Father, but this makes me feel really guilty.
“Outta Here” just happened too much. As baseball became more and more a game of home runs, Harry just repeated his signature call every time. Perhaps for the same reason, I hate - I mean with a passion eclipsed only in the throbbing hell of Ravel’s Bolero, Pascalbel’s Canon and every Christmas Carol (except “The Christmas Song” by Mel Torme) - I hate, hate, hate “High Hopes.” And I can tell you why, I know it very precisely.
Next time your found, with your chin on the ground
There a lot to be learned, so look aroundJust what makes that little old ant
Think hell move that rubber tree plant
Anyone knows an ant, cant
Move a rubber tree plantBut hes got high hopes, hes got high hopes
Hes got high apple pie, in the sky hopesSo any time your gettin low
stead of lettin go
Just remember that ant
Oops there goes another rubber tree plantWhen troubles call, and your backs to the wall
There a lot to be learned, that wall could fallOnce there was a silly old ram
Thought hed punch a hole in a dam
No one could make that ram, scram
He kept buttin that damcause he had high hopes, he had high hopes
He had high apple pie, in the sky hopesSo any time your feelin bad
stead of feelin sad
Just remember that ram
Oops there goes a billion kilowatt damAll problems just a toy balloon
Theyll be bursted soon
Theyre just bound to go pop
Oops there goes another problem kerplop
There is no such thing as a rubber tree plant. I take it on faith that there is a plant that makes rubber - haven’t researched it, but let’s just assume. It is either a tree or a plant, but I can guarantee you that no flora on the face of the earth is called a “tree plant.” I swear, that’s why I hate the song. Also because I am not convinced that you can rule out a ram poking a hole in a dam, depending on the size of the ram and the size of the dam. There are dams made out of mud, you know.
But, as in any relationship, I learned to love it in spite of the occasional “tree plant.” Even that song can be forgiven when you listen to Harry sit at the feet of one of the best center fielders in the history of the game, dubbed “His Whiteness”, Richie Ashburn. You had to love Harry, not for being clever, or filling the airwaves with scintillating banter. No, like Dickie Smothers or Mary Tyler Moore, Harry was best at setting up his partner and letting him shine. With barely a verbal wink and a nod, Harry would slowly draw out the old Nebraskan’s rain prediction secret (”I can smell it”) or the observation that the man on first looked “runnerish.” Or stories from the Mets’ storied first years, when the star was “Marvellous Marve Throneberry.” And when Whitey departed for the great eternal sports banquet, Harry’s devastation, his inconsolable nostalgia for Ashburn more than anything displayed his inner goodness.
I have a theory about this male love story. For Harry, Ashburn represented the game that Ashburn had played so well. And Harry loved the game. Harry not only loved the game, he respected it. And that is why, when Harry broadcast the game, it was as though we were standing behind the cage at the field on a Sunday afternoon in the sun, the pop of bats and the smack of the gloves punctuating the dull hush of summer. His voice was relaxed, like a great hitter at the plate, and his cadence ambled lazily, like batting practice.
Baseball is an odd game, uniquely unsuited to modern television broadcasting. It is leisurely and still for minutes on end. It looks as if nothing is happening. Then it bursts into action, and the crowd is drawn out in admiring exclamations wholly lacking in words, syntax or sparkling intellectual content. Then all is quiet again.
There really are no words in baseball. Harry understood this, and that is why he was special among announcers in this modern age. He did not talk all the time. As he had done with Whitey, Harry got out of the way and let us just enjoy the game as much as Harry did. We will miss the silence he granted us, that rare reservation of peace from the maelstrom of 24/7 TV.
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