Kalas got to live his dream

By Frank Fitzpatrick

This story was first published on Jul 28, 2002

NAPERVILLE, Ill. - Carol Drendel recalled the long-ago date when a young Harry Kalas, his blond crew-cut Brylcreemed to a perfect ridge in front, took her to a drive-in movie in his father's Packard.

"He just sat there the whole night," she said, "and pretended he was announcing a baseball game. "

Her husband, Gib Drendel, remembered the hard-of-hearing world history teacher at Naperville Community High School in Kalas' junior year.

"In that class, to entertain everyone, Harry used to cup his hands around his mouth and pretend to be announcing a Washington Senators game," Drendel said. "He'd go, 'Here's the 3-2 pitch from Cam-il-o Pas-cual. ' "

A half-century ago, Naperville was a small town. Many of its 7,000 residents worked at Kroehler Manufacturing Co.'s massive furniture factory and lived on quiet, tree-shaded streets, some of which ran near the wide banks of the DuPage River. It was, looking back anyway, a kind of malt-shop Valhalla.

"During the 1950s," reads a town history written in 1981, "Centennial Beach, the YMCA, summer band concerts with ice cream socials were Naperville's prime public recreational offerings. "

Few would have believed that by 2002 its population would be swollen to 133,000. Fewer still could have envisioned the disappearance of the surrounding dairy farms and forests as Naperville transformed itself from Main Street to Main Line, becoming a yuppie haven for Chicago commuters.

But no one who knew him back then would be the least bit surprised that Harry Kalas became a legendary baseball broadcaster.

"Harry got to live out his dream," said Gib Drendel, a family-law attorney in nearby Batavia. "How many people can say that? "

His deep-voiced destiny was so clear to the rest of the 109 seniors in 1954 that someone at the high school's yearbook, the Arrowhead, placed these prophetic words alongside the photo of the blond kid with the impish smirk:

"Harry Kalas . . . Future Sports Announcer. "

"Harry loved baseball, and he had this big loud voice," said classmate Gene Drendel, Gib's cousin, a retired school administrator who still lives here. "We all knew he was going to be announcing sports somewhere someday. We just assumed it would probably be in Chicago. "

In the days leading up to Kalas' induction today into the broadcasters' wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame, longtime residents here recalled fondly the tow-headed teenager whom, because of his diminutive stature through most of high school, they called "Pots. "

The friendliness, tearful sentimentality and broadcasting gifts that are Kalas' hallmarks were born here in this Ozzie and Harriet community, nearly 30 miles west of Chicago. Harry Kalas at 66, in fact, is not much different from "Pots" Kalas at 16, say his Naperville acquaintances, right down to his fondness for a postgame cocktail and a cigarette.

"He has stayed the same through the years," said Jeanine Warnell, a retired Naperville Community teacher who introduced Kalas to public speaking in her sophomore English class. "He was just one of those students I've never forgotten. I'm so proud of him. "

Kalas was described as a bright and good-natured boy who swam with friends in the local limestone quarries, consumed square scoops of ice cream and drank "Green Rivers" (lime juice and soda water) at a riverside drive-in called Prince's Castle, watched Western movies at the Naper Theater downtown, and starred - in drag - in his senior class play.

He also was the son of a preacher, though as those same friends point out, that hardly qualified him as an angel. One look at Kalas' yearbook photos reveal that this 1950s teenager must have admired James Dean as well as Dizzy Dean.

His blue jeans were rolled up roguishly at the bottom. He wore a defiant crew cut and had a mischievous grin. Like many of his classmates, he smoked at the soda shops and ice-cream parlors, snuck a couple of beers on weekends, and loved to play poker in the basement of Gene Drendel's Washington Street house during school lunch breaks.

"Harry was . . . well, Harry was a real fun-loving guy," said Gib Drendel. "Still is, from what I understand. I'll always remember the night we sat in a car outside his house and made bets on whether or not he would be able to walk into his house without falling down. He fell flat on his face short of the door.

for more go to http://www.philly.com/inquirer/breaking/sports_breaking/20090413_Kalas_got_to_live_his_dream.html