I was reluctant to use Outta Here in the headline because some might have considered it to be trite. But I’m not sure there is a better phrase that was a part of the fabric of Philly sports fans growing up in the 1990s than Harry’s signature call and its association with a majestic Darren Daulton home run.

For fans around the age of 30, give or take a few years, Darren Daulton was the first athlete we could truly embrace. The early 90s were a dark time in Philly sports, and Dutch was the one bright light– a heroic, quintessential Philly figure.

For me, it all started in 1990, on my seventh birthday. I went to a game – we had seats in the 300 level behind home – and Daulton was catching Terry Mulholland, a little-known, middling Phillies pitcher at the time. He threw a no-hitter that night, and the lasting image for me was Daulton running to the mound, hugging Mulholland and lifting him off the ground, an embrace Dutch would recreate three years later with Mitch Williams when the Phillies won the National League pennant.

In the interim, Dutch ushered in my baseball fandom. Maybe it’s because kids are so perceptive, but I recall studying his every move… the way he squatted a little bit higher when there were runners on base… the way he threw the ball back to the pitcher with a straight, lazy arm… the way he flapped his glove when he wanted a pitch in the dirt… the way he strolled to the mound with his backwards helmet, tucked his mask under his arm, and slapped the winning pitcher on the ass. His majestic, looping swing. The hair. He was a baseball player, the canonical Jake Taylor. He was the first athlete that led me to proclaim I’d follow him to wherever he was traded and that team would become my new favorite team (indeed, I loved the Marlins in 1997). Perhaps only Eric Lindros, Jay Wright and Chase Utley have inspired similar irrational fandom in me.

I feel like I remember seeing each of Daulton’s five career grand slams, one seated in the first row of the 200 level down the third base line, I think against the Dodgers. There was something about a Dutch home run– you knew it was gone from the moment it hit the bat and began its journey to the black tarp behind the Phillies bullpen. Outta here.

Daulton, more than any other athlete, was a part of our youth. He was Phillies baseball.

Everyone has a great Dutch story, many of which came during his stint on Talkin’ Baseball with Dutch on 97.5, a reclamation project that led to Dutch doing countless appearances around the Philly area. I went to see him at Tonelli’s in Horsham with my now wife in 2010. She explained to him that she had written a book about him when she was little. Daulton was more interested in her memory than mine – seeing him catch Mulholland’s no-hitter – and called his then girlfriend, yet another unreasonably hot woman, over to tell her that “this girl wrote a book about me!” I’m pretty cynical, but he seemed genuinely touched, and my wife still talks about it to this day.

Sometime around 1993, perhaps a year or two after, my mom was picking a friend up from the airport late one night and saw Dutch coming off a plane. Unkempt and understandably flustered, she ran over to him, sans pen, and asked if he could sign something for her son who was his biggest fan (along with all the other biggest fans). He talked to her for a minute and, graciously, explained that he didn’t have a pen either but if she could find one, he’d gladly sign something. She didn’t, and didn’t get the autograph. But we got the story.

These are two small anecdotes. They are the sorts of stories we all have. His reclamation tour, following a few years of drinking, domestic and, uh, UFO issues, allowed him to press the flesh with his many admirers. There are countless videos on YouTube from this tour, each with a smiling Dutch, usually chatting with fans at a bar. He was one of us, only better at baseball, better looking, and much, much cooler.

It’s hard to put into words what he meant to Phillies fans growing up in the 90s, and I’m doing a poor job of trying. His story is so well known that there’s little I, or anyone else, can say that hasn’t already been said. But it is a sad, sad day when your favorite player dies. Today is that day. Rest in peace, Dutch.