Outta here...

I already cried once for Harry Kalas this spring.

Baseball is about rebirth. It's not ironic that its coming every year coincides with spring... that in the coldest days of February, when we've had just about all we can stand of winter and snow and ice and single digit temps, the days are also starting to get noticably longer at both ends.

For a baseball fan, four words usually melt most of the February chill, or at least make it tolerable:

PITCHERS AND CATCHERS REPORT.

Every February, those four words mean as much to a baseball fan as the first robin. If the pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training, then spring is on its way. Winter no longer stands a chance.

Baseball is about rebirth and the return of spring every year, yes, but it's also about continuity, about a game that connects not just day to day or week to week, but season to season, decade to decade... a game that continues at its essential core in spite of Balco, insane salaries and even more insane ticket prices, and whatever other evils the dark lords of sports attempt to inflict on it.

Doubt it? Take an evening this spring and go to a Little League game.

Try as anyone might to profane it, baseball itself is, with little exception, the same game we played as Little Leaguers, and the same game our dads watched and played when they were kids, and that their dads watched, and so on all the way back.

You can't say that about many other sports. Jim Thorpe or Y.A. Tittle might not be able to hold their own against the Steel Curtain, but put Babe Ruth in the batters box against C.C. Sabathia, and it probably wouldn't be a mismatch.

I suspect that it's that timeless quality, and the feeling that this season's games --today's game-- is part of a bigger continuum that stretches further back than memory and will go on beyond all of our deaths, that makes baseball so deep to its fans.

To those of us who could never quite learn how to hit a curve ball, baseball was defined by our favorite teams' successes and failures. And for a long time fan of a team, players, managers and owners may come and go, but the continuity is what you hold onto. Anything that links you to the team's past defines you as a fan.

Part of a team's continuity is its broadcasters. Baseball broadcasters are the link between a fan and his team. On the radio, a broadcaster is a fan's eyes at the park. More than that, a good broadcaster is a person who respects the game, respects the team, respects the continuity and the tradition, and respects you as a listener.

For 38 years, Harry Kalas was the voice of the Phillies. His voice on the radio every spring was my "first robin." I may have been hearing "pitchers and catchers report" for weeks... may have been seeing the ever-lengthening days while I read spring training dispatches from Florida... but until I turned on the radio and heard Harry Kalas' voice calling that first spring training game every spring, there was still a little doubt.

Would the season go off?

Hearing Harry's voice every spring the last three decades was always a tremendous relief. The moment itself almost always sounded the same: one of his colleagues (lately, Scott Franzke on radio) would handle the pregame, the lineups in that first spring game, or maybe even the first couple innings, but eventually it'd come down to: "It's my pleasure to turn you over to the Hall of Fame voice of the Phillies, Harry Kalas."

And then a short pause, like it still might not happen...

... then...

..."Thanks, Scott! Good afternoon, everyone. Jimmy Rollins steps in and the first pitch is outside, ball one..."

...or whatever the pitch was.

And that was all it took. With those simple words, with that benediction, spring was officially here. Maybe it was still snowy out, maybe it was freezing and still a month or more before the robins or buds or flowers appeared, but if Harry Kalas was back on the air calling that first spring training game for the Phillies, then the rest would surely follow.

And in spite of myself, it always made me cry. Tears of joy. Baseball is back. Spring can't be far behind.

For close to 35 years, that moment has always been the happiest moment of the spring for me.

So like I said: I already cried once this spring for Harry Kalas.

I wish I wasn't crying for him again today.

Rest in peace, Harry. And thank you.