The Phillies are a family and it doesn’t matter if you are a popcorn vendor or a fixture like Vince, who handled dugout security, or Jimmy Rollins, the reigning MVP — you all might as well be wearing the uniform.
—Doug Glanville, New York Times, November 1, 2008

Doug Glanville's loyalty and eloquence notwithstanding, there's not much to like about the Phillies from a Met perspective. A few things to admire in terms of recent accomplishment and approach to the game, but you could have said the same thing about the Braves back in the day. And we couldn't stand the Braves either. At least Atlanta had the decency to remain many hundreds of miles away — in Atlanta.

But there was one thing the Phillies had going for them that I out and out liked for many years, and that was the presence of Harry Kalas in their broadcast booth. Now and then if the Mets weren't playing or if the Phillies were playing a game that impacted the Mets' standing, I'd tune into staticky 1210 AM — WCAU before its call letters changed every five minutes — and listen to Harry and his colleagues bring me baseball from somewhere else. I felt like I was beating the system, tapping into a source that was outside my official jurisdiction. Phillies baseball, like any baseball that was essentially foreign to me, sounded very different from what I was used to. No Murph. No Kiner. No Thorne. No Cohen. It wasn't better, it wasn't necessarily worse. It was different. The radio is the great unequalizer. No two broadcast styles, if done well, sound alike.

Harry Kalas sounded substantial. When he passed away early this season, the word you heard was "baritone," and as little as I know about vocal classification, that sounded right. It was rich, it was deep, it was Harry Kalas. It was familiar from the NFL and commercials (and later the adorable Puppy Bowl), but it was mostly baseball from somewhere else. That made it both exotic and assuring. Harry Kalas made it well done.

On a November evening in 1996, I talked several coworkers into joining me at the Museum of Television and Radio on 52nd Street for a seminar on baseball announcing. The main attraction for me was Gary Cohen, but the entire panel was a draw: Joe Castiglione from the Red Sox; Bob Wolff from the 1950s Senators, the 1970s Knicks and News 12 Long Island; Curt Smith the author/historian; John Sterling the blowhard; and Harry Kalas of Philadelphia. There was a lively discussion, there was a chance to pester Gary afterwards and then there was something of a bonus track.

I went to the men's room, which on the auditorium level of MTR included a pay phone. I walked in and two men surrounded that phone: an attendee and a panelist — Harry Kalas. The attendee, all anxious, hands Harry the phone and tells him, "go ahead, go ahead!" Harry, who no doubt missed few producers' cues, was on.

Hi, you've reached Tom and Mary. They're not home right now...

Holy Mickey Morandini! This guy had the nerve to ask Harry Kalas to leave the outgoing message on his home answering machine! And Harry Kalas is doing it!

Wow!

Just like that, Tom from the Delaware Valley, or whatever his name was, had a dream OGM come true and Harry Kalas, all-time announcer en route to Ford Frick honors, just made one person he never met extraordinarily happy. With a pay phone. In a men's room.

Wow!

The guy thanked him profusely. Harry said no problem. I smiled and shook my head at Kalas after his fan left, told him that was incredible and echoed what someone else in the audience testified earlier: "I love tuning through the static and listening to you on 'CAU or whatever it's called now." Harry smiled, thanked me, washed and dried his hands and left.

The Phillies uniform and those who wear it are, as those things that represent archrivals tend to be, rather nauseating to me. I'm sure they'll be tonight. But that little HK patch they're wearing to honor the late, great Harry Kalas? HK will always be OK.

Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

Which do you like better? Johan Santana Field? Johan Santana Stadium? Johan Park at Santana Yards? The Joho Grounds? He can name it whatever he likes. He owns it.

Let's not wait. Let's not leave it to Mets ownership to properly honor Johan Santana. He is more than National League Pitcher of the Month. He is more than National League Pitcher of the Eon. He is more than The Franchise. At this moment, he is the entire Industry and several subsidiary interests. He is Johan Santana. When you've said Johan you've said it all. His is the one arm to have even if technically you need more than one.

Do you trust the Mets to remember that? It's bad enough trusting his teammates to score for him. That's why we mustn't wait for him to play out however many contracts he'd like to sign, however many Cy Johans he'd like for his mantel, however long he'll continue to toy with the abilities of mere mortals — even those who, by their gaudy sleeve patches, refer to themselves as world champions. If Johan Santana walks this earth, how is it possible for anyone else to presume to be championing it?

Tommie Agee was the last Met inducted into the team Hall of Fame seven long years ago. At this rate, the organization will still be dithering over Darryl, Doc, Keith and, for that matter, Ron Hunt by the time Johan is inducted by acclimation into Santanatown (an upstate hamlet closely associated with James Fenimore Santana, writer of great American pitching lines). We know they'll be giving the 2020s' version of Mister Koo No. 57 the second it's no longer actively graced by the Met body of all Met bodies, so let's stop them before they forget who brought them their greatest glory from 2008 on. Let's put 57 on the wall of Sanway Park immediately and have the Son of Jor-El simply rub his cape against it before each start. And yes, of course, rename Citi Field at once. What are they/we paying the Mets for naming rights? $20 mil per annum? Oh, Johan Santana is far more valuable than that.

Johan Santana completely stifled the Phillies Wednesday night, much as he completely stifles everybody. Somehow, almost accidentally, Fernando Tatis, Carlos Delgado and Jayson Werth combined to score an entire run for him, which is all a superman with an ERA of 0.91 requires for victory. Pedro Feliciano and Frankie Rodriguez dared not untidy his work from there. And that was it. Santana wins, Mets win. It was a team effort. On those glitchy occasions when there is a Met loss and Santana pitches, I cannot fathom that he is part of that team. If Alex Rodriguez signified 24 + 1, Johan Santana is 1 who happens to be kind enough to not disavow his ties to 24. Johan has started six games thus far in 2009. The Mets have won four of them. The other two shouldn't count. A team playing behind Johan Santana can't possibly lose, therefore those two games simply must not have occurred.

Chan Ho Park picked the wrong night to stop being Chan Ho Park, for Johan Santana is always Johan Santana. Just by showing up, he has home field advantage. This is, after all, his world.

You don't have to spend the next 15 days on the Disabled List like Oliver Perez to enjoy Faith and Fear in Flushing, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.