Harry Kalas -- Time to go?

This Harry must go bullshit began with the Philadelphia Dirty News. Harry is old but he still is Mr. Baseball in Philadelphia. I remember the same case was made decades ago when By Saam was announcing games.
Harry Kalas can call games in a drunken stupor better than many sober broadcasters. He still calls a great game.
LEAVE HIM ALONE.

 

I hope there's a corresponding sympathy component for print types.

"You know, he had the score wrong, had the wrong guy hitting the home run, called the Nationals "the Senators" and had a bunch of sentence fragments, but it's just good to see his byline year after year."

 

Garry Maddox did a good job with the Phillies in limited time.

Let me see if I understand this right. Oafish Harry Caray does this stuff multiple times a day and it's charming, part of the Wrigley gestalt. But the other Harry does it and he's late for the glue factory.

 

A-Freakin-MEN!

 

Two different styles and personalities. Harry Carey was drunk half of the time. Harry Kalas is now off booze. Harry Carey didn't know the game. Harry Kalas does.

 

Actually, you miss the comparison.
Harry knew the game well, when with the Cardinals and White Sox, but degenerated into a blabbering fool who could not go an inning without making a blunder.
Yet, that was when he was the most popular.

 

No, you missed the comparison. I know what you're talking about however, I'll stand by my original statement.

 

I think your comparison holds if Harry had been like he was at the end for his entire career.
Caray (note the spelling, please) did know the game at one time, as Kalas always has.
If Kalas was that hard of a drinker, it never came across on the air.
I still don't get why someone like Caray who became a parody of himself was so revered. A good announcer documents the game, not overpowers it and tries to be bigger than the game itself.

 

My comparison holds because I've been around both.

 

I was WAITING for that.

And guess what?
So have I.

 

sigh

 

Valid point, Smasher. Forgetting about Kalas for the moment [I still have dozens of audio cassettes of him doing NFL Films highlights shows in the late 1970s-early 1980s, so I've always been a fan of his], it is interesting how we in sports media clobber the Willie Mayses and Steve Carltons of the world for hanging on too long, but seemingly are OK with writers/broadcasters who do it.