Contest: The Harry Kalas biography
I finished reading "Harry the K: The Remarkable Life of Harry Kalas," by Randy MIller, and I got a little choked up at the end. Miller exhaustively reported this biography of the legendary Phillies reporter. It's so detailed that, when I saw Randy Miller last month at Citi Field, I asked him if he had started working on this before Kalas died suddenly in April 2009.
No, Miller told me, when Kalas passed away, his widow handed over access to Kalas' phone book and gave him carte blanche. That included interviews with Kalas' psychologist, and apparently honest portrayals of Kalas' flaws. It's really quite a book, with my one complaint that there's actually too much information at times. It could've been whittled down some.
Here's your question:
Kalas served as a broadcaster for Astros games from 1965 through 1970, and then for Phillies games from 1971 until his 2009 death. In that period, he called the action of nine players who wound up in the Hall of Fame. One of those nine played for both the Astros and Phillies during Kalas' respective stays.
Naming all nine players is a tough task - and yes, I understand that, eventually, players like Scott Rolen, Curt Schilling and Chase Utley could add to that list, but we're talking about current Hall members _ so I'll give the book to the person who can give me the most accurate names within the next hour-plus. As I type, it's 2:06, so let's make it a 3:10 E.S.T. deadline.
E-mail me at kdavidoff@newsday.com with your answer. Obviously, if someone gets all nine names, then I'll immediately announce the winner.
UPDATE, 2:19 p.m.: We have a winner! Not only was the question not as difficult as I feared, but Ben Muschel, our winner - known as @TweetTheMets on Twiter - helped me leap from my original count of seven to the correct nine. Oy vey. This is why I try to keep these simple.
The nine Hall of Famers were: Jim Bunning (Phillies), Steve Calrton (Phillies), Nellie Fox (Astros), Eddie Mathews (Astros), Joe Morgan (both), Tony Perez (Phillies), Robin Roberts (Astros), Ryne Sandberg (Phillies) and Mike Schmidt (Phillies).
