This is what I remember most about Harry Kalas: A friend of mine asked me if I could get Harry to wish her grandfather a happy birthday over the air. Her grandfather watched every Phillies game even though his eyes had started betraying him a few years earlier, and while he could only make out a sliver of the action he always knew when Pat Burrell chased a slider away. He knew by the sound in Harry’s voice.

I told Harry the story in the press room and he just nodded and told me to write down the particulars. In the bottom of the second, the great Harry Kalas took a moment to wish him a happy birthday, “sev-en-ty five years young,” the words stretching out like in one of those NFL Films narrations for which the rest of the country knew him. It was that extra bit that made the difference, taking this request from a favor to a special moment and from fleeting to lasting. Harry did stuff like that all the time. I never quite knew if he understood the power of his voice or if he just got a kick out of random strangers asking to hear it -- I suspect it was probably a combination of both -- but he never said no.

I had a conversation with him once before a game in St. Louis. The night before, the reliever Steve Kline had managed to get his first Major League hit. Afterward, Kline who had grown up in Subury, Penn., was beaming at the thought that Harry Kalas had called his moment of glory. “That’s pretty cool,” I said to him, and he looked up with a twinkle in his eye and said, “Yeah. That is pretty cool.”

Harry Kalas called Phillies games for 38 years. He was there for the opening of the Vet and he was the MC for its last game. To a certain demographic he was always the guy who had replaced Bill Campbell and By Saam, but to people in their 30s and younger, Harry the K was the only voice they ever knew on the Phillies. That enabled him to reach a different kind of popularity even after he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002. To them, Harry was baseball and more than that, he was the Phillies, because he was often the best thing about the franchise.

His partner for many of those years, Whitey Ashburn, was perfect for Harry. There has never been a broadcasting duo with better chemistry than Whitey and Harry. They knew the game and talked about the game, but in light moments they traded in-jokes that were familiar to anyone who had ever pulled up a bar stool in his hometown of Aston. They were as much a part of summer as the Jersey Shore and water ice from Rita’s.

After Whitey died, Harry was never able to recapture that magic with any of his other partners and in later years he would sometimes go into his famous “Swing and a long drive” call just a bit before it was time declare that ball, “Outta heeeere.” But no one ever criticized Harry. It would have been obscene, and despite its national reputation, Philly has always fiercely protected its own.

I got to know Harry during a strange time in the team’s history. Curt Schilling was leaving and Pat Burrell was coming. In between I saw the end of Tito Francona and Scott Rolen and the beginning of the Jimmy Rollins/Chase Utley/Ryan Howard era. There were some lean years and some frustrating ones at the end but Harry never wavered. I distinctly remember him chastising another broadcaster for getting on an umpire over a call that would have won the Phillies the game in extra innings. The ump was right and Harry wouldn’t have it. “I know you want to go home,” Harry admonished. The game still had to be played.

I feel privileged for the short time that I got to be around Harry Kalas. I only wish I could have been around last fall when the Phillies won the World Series again. It’s a bit of a cliché to say that he went out on top but I bet he enjoyed the hell out of it and it wouldn’t have been the same without his voice.