Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (38 page)

At 11:29 P.M., the Phils, 97, won title one. "World champions of baseball!" Kalas, re-creating, roared. "It's pandemonium at Veterans Stadium! All
of the fans are on their feet. This city has come together behind a baseball
team! Phillies are world champions! This city knows it! This city loves it!"
Rising sun: A million Quakers jammed the victory parade.

"The [50-day 1981 players'] strike killed our championship momentum," said
Harry. In 1983, a lesser club won the flag: Kalas did the Series in customary
white loafers and blue slacks, cigarette in hand, filling a homemade scoresheet. Rose hiked to Montreal. Carlton skipped to San Francisco. Remaining:
"There's a smash down the third-base line! What a stop by Schmitty! .. .
Struuuck him out! ... Watch that baby go!" In suburban Wallingford, a ninthgrader penned a "favorite person essay." Kalas's voice "is sleepy and invigorating all at once," Rich Beck, 15, wrote. "It is a beautiful thing."

In 1986, Schmidt won a 10th Gold Glove, led the N.L. for the eighth
time in homers, and took his third MVP. Next April 18, he faced Pittsburgh's
Don Robinson. "Here's the pitch.... He takes a shot at it! There it goes! It
is outta here! Michael Jack Schmidt has hit his five-hundredth home run!
What a spot! What a spot! And the entire team comes out to greet Schmitty!
He puts the Phillies in front, 8 to 6! For Mike Schmidt, his five-hundredth
homer!"

In the clubhouse, mates cried "We want Harry!" then four times replayed
his call. Rising/ setting: The Phils twice plunked last; the '93ers won the East.
Kalas brayed "High Hopes," his favorite song. Once the team's pear-shaped,
green-haired, elephant-nosed mascot crashed the booth, scaled a ledge, and
mugged his way around the bowl. "What does it say," partner Richie Ashburn
asked Harry, "that you're one of our biggest stars-and the [Phillie] Phanatic
is the other?"

For $120, the Vet proposed marriage on the scoreboard. Kalas swooned
like a schoolboy for 2002. "I'm on cloud nine," he said of Cooperstown. "For
a kid who fell in love with the game at ten, to be going in ... is mind-boggling." A full house at the Vet, including Mickey Vernon, got bobble head dolls
of Mr. K and now-late Ashburn. Harry toured the field in a convertible: said
the Daily News, "as much a local figure as cheesesteaks, the Art Museum, and
the Summers Strut."

In July, Philly fanatics filled another field near the Hall of Fame. "This is
the ultimate honor," Kalas began. Tearing, he imagined Richie's twist: "Hard to
believe, Harry!" ending with a poem that read, "Philadelphia fans, I love you!"

From the distance a voice yelled, "And we love you, too, Harry!"At such
a time, "It's outta here!" seemed less chant than definition of his appeal.

HARRY NALAS

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart observed, "I can't define it
[obscenity], but I know it when I see it." Radio/TV chemistry is what you
see, hear, and sense. Philadelphia's 1971-97 alloy was two chemists with a
needle. "We anticipated one another," mused Ashburn. "It's nothing you can
work on." Said Kalas: "Our rapport-it was always there."

Richie had mixed elements since 1948: .308 lifetime average; 1955 and
'5 8 batting titles; four-time league-high in walks and on-base percentage. The
five-time All-Star was a paladin in center field. Said The National Pastime:
"Each year he would catch about 50 balls that Mays wouldn't get to"-hungry, smart, and fast as a deer.

In 1963, the towhead-ergo, "Whitey"-swapped jockstrap for jock-
ocracy. "Those first few years, I had a lot to learn." By Kalas's arrival, he had. Born in Tilden, Nebraska, 140 miles from Omaha, Ashburn was twice signed
by 18. "The Indians and Cubs gave me deals, but technicalities messed up the
contract." He got it right leaving Norfolk Junior College: a $3,500 Phils
bonus. Next: the Army, Eastern League, and perpetual National League
second-division team.

In 1948, Whitey hit .333, became TSN Rookie of the Year, and wowed
Ted Williams. "That kid has twin motors in his pants." Nine times Philly's captain led the league in chances and had 500 or more putouts-5-10, 170
pounds, and looking for an edge.

Once Richie kept whining about pitches.

"All right," umpire Jocko Conlan said. "You umpire. I'm letting you call
the next pitch."

"You're kidding," he replied.

"Nope, you call the next one." The next pitch was a foot outside. Ashburn said, "Strike."

Conlan signaled, called time, and went out to dust the plate. "I gave you
the only chance a hitter ever had in history to bat and umpire at the same
time," he said, looking up. "You blew it. That's the last pitch you'll ever call.
You're not gonna louse up my profession."

For a long time the Phils kept lousing up their own.

The '49ers finished 16 games behind Brooklyn. Philadelphia had not won a
post-1915 flag. In 1950, it led by a game with one left at Ebbets Field. Whitey
threw out Cal Abrams in the ninth inning to keep the score I -all. Dick Sisler's
three-run dinger won the pennant. A decade-long free fall then started. Ashburn remained a Merlin, hitting one season ticket holder in the head. She
took a stretcher to the hospital. Next day he went to visit. The woman's leg
was in traction from the roof of the bed.

"Gee," said the Samaritan, "I knew I got you with that foul ball, but what
on earth happened to your leg?"

"Richie, you won't believe this," said Alice Roth, "but as they were carrying me off on the stretcher you hit another foul ball that hit me and broke
a bone in my knee."

One day a Cub neared the batting cage. "Whitey, you hit a lot of foul
balls. My wife, Madge, and I aren't getting along. You know where the wives
sit here [at Wrigley Field]. Why don't you take a shot at her your first up?"

Obliging, Ashburn lined toward Madge. Her spouse waved a towel:
"Whitey, two rows back and one to the left and you got her."

The Cubs got Richie in 1960. Next year he was plucked by the expansion
Mets. "Ashburn brought a ... curiosity about life and people with him to the
ballpark," said Stan Isaacs. "He had style." Radio/TV seemed a next step.
Problem: the silken player was burlap-rough. "Boys, this game looks a lot
easier from up here," he said. It wasn't.

"You've got so much time to fill," Richie rued. The '64ers helped, though
that was not their intent.

Later, as Bull bulldozed, one skipper said, "Nobody makes a scrapgoat of
Frank Lucchesi," and another, Dallas Green, won a Series-Ashburn and
Kalas became, by any norm, the team.

"We were friends immediately," said Harry, "and best friends, eventually."
Added Whitey: "We knew how lucky we were not to have a real job." Baseball is routine. A listener soon anticipated theirs like a pet book or favorite
film: Ashburn, cap and piped blacksmith's son; Kalas, the piano man"George Burns," said the Inquirer, "to Whitey's Gracie Allen."

Last day, 1992. Phils finish next-to-last. "What are they going to name their
highlight film?" said Harry.

Richie: "How about, `The game's not so easy.'"

Another night. "Harry, you know I did something Babe Ruth never did?"

"What's that, Whitey?"

"Hit a home run in Dodger Stadium."

"Yeah, Whitey, I guess that Babe Ruth wasn't the player he was cracked
up to be."

Ashburn knocked pitchers, baited umpires, and bayed, "Oh, brother" and
"Bet the house on it"-a fine squash, golf, and gin rummy player, 1974-91
Bulletin and Daily News columnist, and the Inquirer's "most beloved Philadelphian in the world."

Getting an award, Richie told the City Council: "I always wanted to be
an institution before I went into one. The race is pretty close." Tri-Staters
loved his barb and view: like Kalas, a pal at the corner bar.

In 1995, 50,000 watched Harry's best friend enter Cooperstown. Two hundred buses drove from Philadelphia. Phillies red dyed the crowd.

"Do I have to treat you any differently now?" said Kalas.

"Yeah, with a little respect."

Jest can prick a funny hone. Truth can break a heart. On September 9,
1997, in a 5:45 A.M. phone call from Phillies trainer Jeff Cooper, Harry
learned that "Whitey just died of a heart attack." Stunned, he sat and sobbed.

Three days later the K gave a eulogy. "Never in [Philadelphia] history ...
has there been such an outpouring of love and affection for our beloved
departed friend," Harry began, voice cracking. "Why this overwhelming reaction? Because Don Richie Ashburn was Whitey: gentle and easy as a country
breeze, down home, biscuits and gravy, Norman Rockwell come to life."

Each night, touching a plaque honoring Whitey, he recalls Ashburn
"wonder[ing] aloud on air if the people from Celebre's Pizza were listening."
Invariably, pizza reached the booth. Problem: Celebre's was not a sponsor.

A light came on. "I'd like to send out very special birthday wishes," Richie
said, "to the Celebre's twins-Plain and Pepperoni."

Seldom had chemistry seemed so pure.

RICHIB ASHBURN

"The country is most barbarously large and final," William Bammer wrote in
The Gay Place. "It is too much country ... so wrongly muddled and various that
it is difficult to conceive of it as a piece." Dick Enberg has been large, various,
and of a piece, including, but eclipsing, the World Series, "Game of the Week," Wimbledon, college and pro football, and NCAA basketball. Don Drysdale
was Big D. Enberg's cool evokes Mr. C. "Oh, my!," to use his moniker.

As a boy, Dick loved how Detroit's Ty Tyson "used the language." Later he
worked as a $1-an-hour janitor at Central Michigan University's radio station, left for hills heavy with farmland and towns shot by Ansel Adams, and
got two degrees in health sciences at the University of Indiana.

In 1961, Enberg took his doctorate, left for California State University
at Northridge, and began a teaching and coaching job. "I wanted to be the
best professor around-that, and never give the same test twice. Sportscasting was just a way to supplement my salary."

Gradually, he became a boxing and Western Hockey League announcer.
Soon Dick left seminars and blue books, play-by-play now "in my blood." It
is fair to say he never tried to cleanse it.

In 1969, Enberg, 34, added Angels baseball to Rams radio and UCLA TV basketball. His new park lay hard by Disneyland. The San Gabriel Mountains
hued the backdrop. Palm trees swayed beyond center field. Arriving, Dick
thought it Anaheim's second magic kingdom.

"Never in contention," he said, "so you looked for the bizzare." One
batter hit between shortstop Jim Fregosi's legs. "That error by the Dago?"
mused skipper Harold (Lefty) Phillips. "Water over the bridge." In 1970, Alex
Johnson won the Halos' sole batting title. Phillips fined (five times), benched
(29), and suspended him. A judge called Johnson "emotionally incapacitated."
How different, Alex mocked, was the team?

Then, in 1972, California got a Mets pitcher for Fregosi. Through 1975,
Nolan Ryan no-hit four teams, including Detroit. "I'm in the booth where I'd
visited as a kid," Enberg said of 1973, "and Nolan's on a tear." Norm Cash thrice
went hitless. Next up, he ditched his bat. "He had a leg from a clubhouse chair as
a substitute. The home plate ump didn't notice" till the first pitch was thrown.

"Get a bat," he said.

"Why?" Cash huffed. "I'm not gonna hit Ryan anyway."

By now, Dick had hit the big time with TV's syndicated "Sports Challenge." Each show, ex-jocks turned panelists. "The people on these programs
were idols to me as a kid. Now I'm asking them questions." He produced PBS's
"The Way It Was," aired the game show `Battle," and joined NBC in 1975.

Suddenly, the classroom seemed far away.

Gowdy was the Peacocks' then-apotheosis: "Name it, he did it," said Scotty Connal. Dick ousted him on NCAA hoops, Super Bowl, and 1980s Granddaddy of Them All, worked "Sports World," and made the analyst look good.
"Only he could work with us at the same time," said Al McGuire, "and keep
everything sane." Not even Gowdy kept so many balls in the air.