Friendly Voices

I would now like to focus on the 1993 Phillies. This will be the first of a four-part series.

I have spent the last several weeks watching Phillies games from 1993 on YouTube. The odd thing is that I will end up watching more games from that season than I did when they were played because in 1993, my family didn’t have Prism, the TV station that carried 40-45 of the Phillies' games. I’d obviously forgotten nearly all of the games before I began re-watching them, and I’ve taken great pains to avoid looking at the final scores. I wanted as authentic an experience as possible. As expected, the picture quality isn’t great because the games were transferred from VHS, but they still oddly feel recent because the players wore very similar home uniforms that the Phillies wear today during non-weekend games (a classic pinstripe look that debuted in 1992). The road uniforms were the same as well.

Of course, the best part of this return to the past is hearing Harry Kalas and Richie “Whitey” Ashburn call the games. I personally only heard Whitey’s voice for five years before he died in 1997, but it sounds as familiar as it did back then. I will spend the rest of this post sharing some interesting realizations about the broadcast team, both from 1993 and now. In my next post, I will do the same with the players.

I heard color commentator, Chris “Wheels” Wheeler, several times before I saw him on camera, and it blew my mind how old he looked (he was 48 at the time) because I thought he sounded so young on the air. I also finally understand why so many people didn’t like Wheels. I still appreciate his commentary for the most part, but listening to him now, I can tell he was clearly a know-it-all who talked too much. It was especially noticeable when he was in the booth with Whitey, because as we all remember, Whitey was a man of few words. I didn’t much care for Andy Musser, the lesser-seen fourth member of the broadcast team, but I don’t mind him nearly as much now. He sounded too much like a news anchor (like Tom McCarthy), but I see now that he was a solid play-by-play announcer.

And then there’s Harry. My high opinion of him has never wavered over the past 27 years. He had so many catchphrases that it’s difficult to keep track, and I always hope a Phillie will do something amazing so I can hear that magical voice raise with excitement. In those moments, he knew the right words to use to get me even more excited. During this long re-watch, every time I’ve clicked on a new game, I’ve hoped it’s a WPHL 17 game so that I can hear Harry call it. He was quite simply the best at what he did.

Harry and the other guys had plenty of opportunities to yell with excitement during that amazing season. I didn’t think I would enjoy watching these games as much as I have. After all, everyone knows how well the Phillies did. But watching familiar players performing at the top of their game, even if it was nearly three decades ago, somehow never gets old. Who knows; I might do this again in another 30 years on whatever advanced medium is around then.