A Moment To Savior

This is a great clip from last night ... but first some backstory:

For all of his achievements, legendary Phillies announcer Harry Kalas had never called the final out of a Phillies championship. Kalas was finishing his first decade with the team back in 1980 when the Phils won their first-ever World Series crown, but Major League Baseball rules prevented local broadcasts of the World Series.

So there is no call of Kalas at the 1980 World Series; Vin Scully and Sparky Anderson had the microphone for CBS Radio. By the Phillies’ next World Series appearance, in 1983, baseball had changed the rule and allowed local radio stations to continue carrying the games.

“The outcry of Phillie fans had M.L.B. change it,” Kalas told the NY Times on Monday. “Phillie fans really let themselves be heard. They wanted to hear Harry and Whitey calling the World Series.”

The Hall of Fame center fielder Richie Ashburn, known as Whitey, was Kalas’s longtime broadcast partner. He died in 1997. This month, Kalas has been working the middle three innings of each game. But when the Phillies have a chance to clinch, the schedule is adjusted so Kalas can call the ninth.

“When it ends, the fans are going to want him narrating it,” Tom McCarthy, another Phillies broadcaster, said. “It’s one of the very few, minute things missing on his résumé, and here is it, a chance for him to do it. He’s the soundtrack of baseball in this city.”

With that I give you this incredible clip of Harry in action, reaching that dream that he's carried for decades.

note: Announcer Chris Wheeler is behind him, but because of the hot mics, can't vocalize his excitement - if so, he would step all over this historic call from Harry. So, that explains his spastic reaction behind Harry!