Post-career
Starting in 1963 Ashburn became a radio and TV color commentator for his original big-league team, the Phillies. He first worked with long-time Phillies announcers Bill Campbell and Byrum Saam. In 1971 Campbell was released by the Phillies and Harry Kalas joined the team. Ashburn worked with these two future winners of the Ford C. Frick Award for the next few years. Saam retired in 1976, and Ashburn continued working with Kalas for the next two decades, the two becoming best friends. Kalas often referred to Ashburn as "His Whiteness", a nickname Kalas would use for the rest of his life for the man he so openly adored. Ashburn also regularly wrote for The Philadelphia Bulletin and, later, The Philadelphia Daily News.
According to his mother, Ashburn planned on retiring from broadcasting at the end of the 1997 season. He died of a heart attack on September 9, 1997, in New York City after broadcasting a Phillies-Mets game at Shea Stadium. A large crowd of fans paid tribute to him, passing by his coffin in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. He is interred in the Gladwyne Methodist Church Cemetery, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
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