August 18, 2002: Harry Kalas Hall of Fame celebration

Major League Baseball offers its fans numerous opportunities during the regular season to honor the most cherished members of their team’s extended family, be they former players, coaches or front office executives. Dad and I made sure we were present for Phillies’ most anticipated of these occasions during the 2002 campaign, and for many in attendance, the celebration recognized not so much a person, but a voice.

The calming baritone to which I refer belonged to none other than Phillies play-by-play announcer Harry Kalas. Despite hailing from the Midwest, Kalas was as Philadelphia as cheesesteaks. He endeared himself to the fans and the players with his easy-going personality and blue-collar devotion to his craft. In the days before he gave up drinking, he could be frequently found at the local watering hole until the wee hours, belting out classic oldies for his listeners, but he always somehow turned up to the broadcast booth on time with a clear head.

And that voice. It carried you to a special place that made baseball an inviting and comforting diversion from life’s daily grind. Kalas also stirred up the adrenalin in just the right doses on every exciting play. Whenever he raised his voice to an enthusiastic yell, particularly on his trademark “outta here” home run calls, he showed his genuine love for the game and his job. I owe my appreciation of baseball to my father, but Kalas played a definite role as well, as he did for multiple generations of Phillies fans.

Now in his 32^nd season with the organization, Kalas received baseball’s highest honor for broadcasters, the Ford C. Frick Award. It’s akin to a Hall of Fame induction for players, and a plaque signifying Kalas’ award is displayed in Cooperstown.

The Phillies commemorated this special recognition with Harry Kalas Day, resulting in Veterans Stadium’s only sellout in another disappointing season. Kalas, donning in a white suit jacket and purple lei around his neck, was honored with a touching pre-game ceremony on the field. Hosts Glenn Wilson and Darren Daulton led the crowd through several of Kalas’ most memorable calls, including Mike Schmidt’s 500^th home run and the last out of the division-clinching game in 1993. Kalas’ family and several members of the ‘80 and ‘93 Phillies teams joined him on the field, and he received a lap around the edge of the field while perched in the back of a red convertible. At the end of the ceremony, we finally got to hear Harry the K himself when he took the microphone to thank the fans for their support over the last 31 years. Kalas’ words carried a special weight for my dad, who had been watching and listening every one of those years.

One of the most touching moments of the ceremony for me occurred when Scott Rolen, who was traded to the visiting St. Louis Cardinals just three weeks earlier, emerged from the visitors dugout, gave Kalas a hug, and then opened the car door for him just prior to the lap. It’s a shame that Kalas and Rolen’s soundtrack to this moment was a chorus of boos from a majority of the crowd. Rolen’s difficulties with Philadelphia manager Larry Bowa were well documented, and some fans never forgave Rolen for his unceremonious departure, but for this one magical event they should have taken the high road.

Rolen wasn’t the only Cardinal under fire.

J.D. Drew became public enemy No. 1 in 1997 when he rejected the Phillies drafting him second overall because they refused the $10 million signing price that Drew’s evil agent, Scott Boras, demanded. The Cardinals gave into Drew and Boras when they drafted him the following year. During Drew’s first visit to Veterans Stadium in 1999, the fans famously showed their displeasure by throwing countless objects, including D-cell batteries, at him.

When Drew came to the plate in the top of the sixth inning to the usual round of boos, some fans sitting near my dad and I in the upper deck took things too far. I guess they counted on Drew to possess X-Ray vision because they stuck up their middle fingers while screaming obscenities. Other fans seated several rows below began shouting up at them to knock it off in deference to the children trying to enjoy the game. That only encouraged the offenders to scream louder, which prompted security to remove them from the area.

My dad and I and the people immediately around us could only shake our heads and laugh. One guy in the row behind us perfectly summed up the situation. Channeling his inner Rodney King, he pleaded innocently, “Can’t we all just get a Bud Light?” I couldn’t believe fans were still getting this worked up over Drew, but at least they provided me with better entertainment than the Phillies, who lost the game 5-1.

Every fan who attended the game received a special item: a bobblehead of Kalas and his former partner in crime, color commentator and Phillies Hall of Fame centerfielder Richie “Whitey” Ashburn. The two of them worked together in the booth for 26 years until Ashburn’s untimely passing in 1997. Their chemistry and humor on the air remains wonderfully unique.

And what would Ashburn’s response to that day’s celebration be?

 

As His Whiteness would say, “Great job, Harry. Now, let’s order a pizza!”

Don't be surprised

Here I come again with my negative anxiety, so let me just be clear that the Phillies, their monster starting rotation and a pocket full of Pence should take care of the Cardinals in the Division Series, in three or four games.

Now that the should is out of the way, I simply want this post to be a reality check for all those fans who saw their team cruise through a 102-win season, and expect to see that parade through Center City. It's now October and a sample size of 42 years (since MLB did away with a single division in each league) tells us that every team that reaches the postseason has an equal chance of winning it all.

For the Phillies, the opening round might present a bigger challenge than any possible matchups further in. The Cardinals are a scary bunch.

Their offense produced better than any in the National League and got the best of Philly pitching more than once. St. Louis' 6-3 advantage in the regular-season series is also a cause for concern.

But what scares me most of all? The Phillies absolutely cannot hit Chris Carpenter and Jaime Garcia, the projected starters for Games 2 and 3.

Since last season, the pair of hurlers have combined for 5-0 record and an unbelievable ERA of 0.88 in eight starts against the Phils. There wasn't a single poor or even mediocre outing in that stretch. I'm sorry to say that's the reason I was kind of hoping the Braves would win on Wednesday. We've proven on more than one occasion that we can beat Atlanta, in both blowouts and squeakers.

Cardinal manager Tony LaRussa must have also seen the numbers, explaining why he set up his rotation the way he did. However, it could work out in Philadelphia's favor.

Carpenter will pitch on Sunday on just three day's rest. I don't have any stats on his effectiveness in that situation because he's never done it before in his major league career. It's quite a gamble, but it's the smart move for the Cardinals. My guess is, an unflappable veteran like Carpenter will still throw his game.

If that's the case, the Phillies absolutely need to win Game 1 tonight. You know Doc will deliver his best, and though Kyle Lohse has enjoyed a solid year, he doesn't silence the Philly bats like Carpenter and Garcia. Losing to one of them won't be so bad if the Phillies are already up a game.

Then again, our guys could sweep, or they could get swept. That's the randomness of the playoffs. As always, I go in cautiously optimistic, and I can't wait for another awesome year of October baseball.

Throw a Cole on the fire

I would be remiss not to at least share my feelings on the announcement of minor league players now getting tested for HGH. When I first learned about this particular hormone a few years back, I was appalled baseball wasn't testing for it along with steroids. As far as I was concerned, HGH gives players even more incentive to cheat because not only was it not being tested, but it didn't swell the muscles and the head to alarming sizes. The drop in power numbers across baseball would suggest that the steroids policy was enough to deter most players from using any performance-enhancing drugs, but this latest step may help cleanse the sport completely. I'm all for it.

Before Cole Hamels went to bed last night, his next start staring him in the face, he knew that he was now a member of a three-man rotation for all intents and purposes. That's a wild notion, let alone reality, and quite a burden on a young pitcher. No one knows how long these thoughts kept Hamels awake last night, but when he stepped off the mound after eight innings of one-hit ball against the streaking St. Louis Cardinals, he appeared like he'd had the best night of sleep in his life.

It was a performance that should've guaranteed a win for the Phillies, but like so many similar performances this season, they gave Hamels nothing and kept all of us biting our nails. To be fair, the Phillies were facing an elite pitcher in Adam Wainwright, but they hit him all game. He admitted afterward that he didn't have his best stuff, but no pitcher has really needed his best stuff against Philadelphia over the last two months.

As the game moved into extra innings, I still couldn't see this falling the Phillies' way, despite how lost the Cardinals looked at the plate. The game was in St. Louis and the momentum still seemed to fall on the home team's side.

It turned out that nine innings of just one hit were too many beatings on the confidence, and Placido Polanco was due to hit one out. Even after his shot, the Phillies managed to string enough baserunners together to tack on another run. The swing on Jayson Werth's RBI double carried the awkwardness of a man whose name had never been thrown around so much for all the wrong reasons, and who had previously been 0-for-18 with runners in scoring position, but it got the job done. How ironic it would be if this was the win that finally led to the right track for a team Werth might not even be a part of by next week.

I will not make such a claim yet, however. Even the worst teams in baseball don't lose all of their games, and Philadelphia has lost four of its last five series, making an anomaly out of that sweep of the Reds before the All-Star Break. Past experience also suggests that the Phillies were supposed to win this game. The two previous times they fell to two games over .500 this season, they won their next game to avoid a complete collapse. It's almost like the Phils are playing Russian Roulette with their season and they haven't yet pulled the trigger with the bullet in the chamber.

The team is hoping that a new starting pitcher will remove the bullet altogether, but I'm not convinced such a move will sweep in drastic changes. Just looking at the past couple of years, top-notch arms that were traded mid-season went to teams that were already playing well. When CC Sabathia was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers in July 2008, they were sitting in second place nine games above .500 and just 3.5 back in the NL Central. The Phillies weren't far removed from a 10-game winning streak and had a six-game lead in the NL East when they picked up Cliff Lee last year.

The Phils aren't in the midst of a run this time around, and the arms available aren't of the caliber of Lee or Sabathia. They can't even score runs for the two aces they already have.

But there is good news. Philadelphia finally returns home after nearly two weeks, and after a 2-6 road trip, is somehow in second place. The Phillies sport an encouraging 27-18 record at Citizens Bank Park, and their recent victory, the roar of the home crowd and the sight of the Liberty Bell in right center have to stir up some optimism. The Phillies need all they can get right now, because there's a real possibility with the maximized budget and tight grip on the few prospects they have left that no new pitcher will don the pinstripes before July 31.

Stop trying so hard!

The thing that I've grown a greater appreciation for as I've delved deeper into my understanding of baseball is the infinite number of things that can result from a pitch to the plate. I suppose the same is true after a snap of the football, a tee shot or a serve in tennis, but those things don't flood me right to the core with anticipation like baseball...

How lovely - the Phillies hit three home runs tonight. It's just a pity all of them came when the game was already lost and with no one on base. Four of the team's six runs Sunday night came via the fly ball. None of them threatened the Cubs' lead, so the pressure was more or less off in each case. Therein lies the point of my posting, which I'm embarrassed to say was unearthed by one of the game's most despised color analysts, Joe Morgan.

Then again, it makes perfect sense. How else would a team full of sluggers try and rid itself of a slump? Swing for the fences to try and be a hero and get the offense going. This is not the right mindset to have in a slump, but everyone in the lineup (except Placido Polanco) has home run on the brain every time they step to the plate. That may be fine for Ryan Howard, who's in the zone right now, but Jayson Werth and Raul Ibanez are in too much of a rut, while Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino (the subject of my next posting) need to worry more about working the count and getting on base.

On the other hand, I can understand how frustrating this long stretch has been. The Philadelphia offense is not known to hit for average, hit well with runners in scoring position or post a high on-base percentage (they're presently among the bottom half of NL teams in all three categories), but they always had the home run to fall back on. Though the Phillies are presently fourth among NL teams in home runs with 98, they're on pace to finish well below last year's league-leading total of 224.

Injuries to Chase Utley and Rollins are partially to blame, but you see the great number of swings and misses at pitches out of the zone, the wasted pitches pulled foul and the countless pop-ups in the infield, it's not hard to guess where the rest of those missing bombs went. The hitters have spent so much time trying to crush every pitch that they've forgotten to look for the right one.

Being down by eight runs can sometimes clear a player's mind. It's easier to focus on your at-bat when the singular act of hitting a home run or reaching base will not affect the outcome of the game. The Phillies got down, way down, and then the home runs followed. The runs arrived far too late and once again, did not help Roy Halladay.

This will be a tough pattern to break, and it's hard to believe it's been going on for two months. A four-game sweep of the Reds is oddly bookended by six losses in eight total games to the Cubs and Pirates. The Reds weren't exactly at their best when the Phils faced them, and the St. Louis Cardinals are entering their series with Philly revitalized from a three-game sweep of the Dodgers that put them back in first place. This is not a good sign for a team that isn't hitting. Maybe instead of swinging for the fence, just aim for patches of grass unoccupied by white uniforms...