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Remembering Ernie Harwell

By Wally Fish

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Skies were a little less blue in the baseball world yesterday as we learned of the passing of Ernie Harwell.  I’ve tried to come up with a meaningful and relevant article to post here but something about it just wasn’t clicking. After a while I realized what the problem was.  While I admired Ernie’s work and certainly can appreciate the brilliance of it and his life in general, as a Royals and Twins fan I was never truly emotionally connected to him.  As a person who spent his life in and around with baseball, Ernie was a kindred spirit to my own and I certainly mourn his loss but he deserves more than that here.  To give Ernie Harwell his due and properly celebrate who he was, I have called on our Detroit Tigers lead writer, John Parent of Motor City Bengals, to contribute an article for Call to the Pen.  […]

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Remembering Ernie Harwell

By John Parent

There was a time, not too terribly long ago, when baseball games were broadcast almost exclusively on the radio. Sure, you could find a “Game of the Week” on Saturday afternoon, perhaps even on Monday night, but by and large, if you wanted to keep up with your local team, you did so by tuning in your AM stations.

Any one in the far reaches of the WJR signal knew Ernie Harwell’s calm, smooth, southern voice. For 42 seasons, Ernie was the voice of the Detroit Tigers. He passed away last night, finally losing his bout his terminal cancer. He was 92 years old.

Ernie Harwell grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and never left his drawl behind. He graduated from Emory University and began his broadcasting career with the Atlanta Crackers of the Southern Association where he called games from 1943 until 1948. It was during that last season that Ernie made baseball history, becoming the only broadcaster ever traded for a player, when Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey traded a catcher, Cliff Dapper, to the Crackers in exchange for Harwell.

He stayed with the Dodgers through 1949, then moved across town to call Giants games before spending six seasons with the Orioles.

In 1960, Ernie became the radio voice of the Tigers, and became ingrained into the fabric of Michigan for generations to come.

Although I was never lucky enough to meet the man, I always felt like I knew him. Ernie had a way about him that allowed all of his listeners into his world. I grew up in Lima, Ohio, roughly three hours south of Detroit, but WJR came in crystal clear on my radio. It was my grandfather, a Detroit native, who first introduced me to baseball, and to the Tigers. It’s funny, the things we recall so fondly years later, things we never truly appreciated in our youths, hearing Ernie on the radio every night was one of those things.

Ernie provided the soundtrack to every summer.

In 1981, the Baseball Hall of Fame honored Harwell with the Ford C. Frick award, but he was far from finished. He stayed with the Tigers through the 1991 season, teamed for the last 19 years with the deep voice of Paul Carey. When Carey retired following the 1991 campaign, Tigers President Bo Schembechler did the only thing he could do to damage his reputation in Michigan, he fired Ernie Harwell. Needless to say, the move was not well-received, and Schembechler resigned after the 1992 season, when the team was sold.

After a year away from Detroit, during which he served part-time duty with the California Angels, Harwell was brought back to Detroit. One of the first moves made by new Tigers owner Mike Ilitch was to right the wrong of Ernie being let go. Harwell was back on the radio in Detroit in 1993 and then spent the next several seasons calling games on the television side. In 1999, the final season of Tiger Stadium, Harwell resumed full-time radio duties, where remained until his retirement following the 2002 season.

But Ernie Harwell was so much more than a broadcaster, so much more than baseball.

Ernie was a devout Christian man. His kindness and generosity never failed, nor did his warm smile and his willingness to give of his time. Ernie was married to his beautiful bride Lulu, whom he always put first. She was there by his side when he passed, just as she always had been.

There have been countless awards and honors bestowed upon Ernie for his work in baseball. Upon his retirement in 2002, the press box at Comerica Park was even re-named in his honor. Ernie was to have received the Vin Scully Lifetime Achievement Award from Fordham University. It will be accepted today in Ernie’s honor by Al Kaline.

When we all found out about Ernie’s cancer, some eight months ago, there was a great sadness spread throughout Michigan, throughout Tiger fans everywhere. There was never even a hint of sadness form Ernie. He knew he was dying, there would be no stopping it. Instead of sorrow, Ernie was as smooth and as calm as ever, always with a smile.

Though we knew the end was near, it sure doesn’t make the news any easier. Dan Dickerson, the voice of the Tigers on WXYT since Ernie’s retirement, broke the news to listeners during last night’s game. He couldn’t speak the words without choking up. And I cannot type these words without doing the same.

The fact is that no amount of words can ever say what Ernie Harwell meant to me or to Tiger fans everywhere. He was one of a kind, he will be truly and deeply missed.

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Here are some links for more thoughts and perspectives on the passing of Ernie Harwell.  I encourage you to read each and every one of them to honor and remember his time on Earth.

The greatest compliment that I can pay Ernie Harwell is that he made it hard to hate the Detroit Tigers.  Even to this day I can’t bring myself to even strongly dislike them, and it is largely because of him.

I can’t imagine a heaven without baseball and now that Ernie has moved on, I can’t imagine a heaven without Ernie Harwell calling the games.

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