Voices Of Summer.

    I've thought of baseball as the perfect game since the moment I picked up a ball and glove.

     I loved every grass-stained hour spent playing pitch and catch--never just "catch"--with anybody willing until they'd either had enough or it was too dark to see. Time spent alone throwing a ball against the wall of the same Methodist church I hated on Sunday was better than any pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey birthday party, and I always put on my Pee Wee uniform first thing in the morning on game day, even though we didn't play until six at night.     

     A side effect of all that baseball was a disproportionate amount of broken windows; sometimes when I hear shattering glass, I still get the urge to run.  

     A huge part of baseball has always included the connection fans have with a team's radio and TV announcers. As a kid, Dave Van Horne's "up, up and away!" punctuated Montreal Expos home runs, and he was my original Voice of Summer. Bill White, Frank Messer and Phil Rizzuto were heard locally broadcasting Yankee games on radio and later on New York's WPIX, once cable TV became common. Ken Coleman and Johnny Pesky handled Boston Red Sox games, both on radio and piped in via a UHF-TV station from Burlington, VT. Mel Allen, of course, had his syndicated "This Week in Baseball" and Curt Gowdy, Tony Kubek and Joe Garagiola worked NBC's "Game of the Week."  

     For the past 22 years, I've been lucky to enjoy the unparalled Vin Scully, who is so good that he continues to work alone. A color commentator would only be in the way.

     I'm not a Philadelphia Phillies fan. My only connection with them growing up was former Phils' "Whiz Kid" Eddie Waitkus. When I was 13, I attended Ted Williams Baseball Camp in Lakeville, MA, and Eddie was my hitting instructor. He was also the inspiration for the novel The Natural, which decades later was made into the movie of the same name. Eddie was a great guy who loved to talk about baseball  and I can still remember reading in Sports Illustrated that he'd died. It was only a couple of months after he'd suggested that I choke up on the bat just a little bit more.

     I'm remembering all of this thanks to an appreciation of Philadelphia Phillies announcer Harry Kalas written by former major-leaguer and ex-Phil Doug Glanville in today's New York Times. Kalas died this week, and he was also the voice of NFL Films. His charcoaled tones were music to the ears, and he was rightfully a legend in the City of Brotherly Love, where they once booed Santa Claus.

     Philly didn't boo Harry Kalas.

     Reading Glanville's touching ode to the Voice of the Phillies caused me to remember my own Voices of Summer once again. I could almost smell the freshly-mown grass and hear the crack of a Louisville Slugger. And reading it reminded me that I'd still spend every grass-stained hour playing baseball in the sun if I had them all back again. 

     Click here to read Glanville's fine remembrance, and always play until it's too dark to see.