Love Him or Hate Him, “Hawk” Harrelson Cutting Back Schedule After 2017
Polarizing Chicago White Sox announcer Hawk Harrelson will likely cut his schedule back significantly after this season.
Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, the long time announcer for the Chicago White Sox, is a very polarizing figure. It’s hard to find a baseball fan who doesn’t have a strong opinion of him. Many absolutely hate the way he broadcasts a game, while others enjoy the passion and charisma he exudes from the booth. This love-him-or-hate-him phenomenon is largely attributable to his unabashed homerism. He’s the White Sox announcer and he doesn’t hide the fact that he’s rooting hard for the home team.
When Harrelson does a game, the White Sox are “the good guys” and balls hit down the line by the White Sox are encouraged to “Stay fair!” When something bad happens to the White Sox, you’ll hear a disgusted, “Dadgummit!” from the Hawk. The 75-year-old will refer to an easy fly ball as a “can of corn” and a cheap hit as a “duck snort.” If you’re a White Sox fan, you love to hear him say, “You can put it on the board! YES! YES!” If you’re a fan of the opposing team, you rage when he says, ‘He gone!” after one of your guys strikes out.
In 2010, GQ magazine named Harrelson the worst announcer in baseball. He retained that honor in a crowdsourcing poll at FanGraphs last May. Actually, the FanGraphs poll placed Harrelson and his broadcast partner, Steve Stone, at the bottom of the list of all broadcast teams in baseball, but it was Harrelson who received the pointed comments. For example, one reader noted, “Hawk’s general interest in baseball waxes and wanes significantly at the game-to-game level, and whatever folksy charms he had have long since ossified into pull-string cliché.”
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On the other hand, there are fans who love his passion and believe his unapologetic homerism is part of his charm. They find him entertaining and enjoy his use of old-school phrases like “Texas leaguers” and “Baltimore chops.” He’s the favorite announcer of some fans who believe the way he calls the game is the way it should be called, with a significant hometown bias.
If you despise the way Hawk Harrelson broadcasts a game, you’ll be glad to know he’s nearing the end of his long career. If you love him, you’ll want to enjoy him while you can. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Harrelson will cut back on his already abbreviated broadcasting schedule after this season. He expects this to be the last season he does significant play-by-play work, although he would like to stay in baseball in some capacity until 2020, which would make parts of eight decades that he has been in professional baseball.
Harrelson broadcast road games and a select number of home games in 2016 and will do the same this year. Steve Stone has been the constant on Sox broadcasts, teaming with Harrelson on the road and Jason Benetti at home. Benetti would likely be the guy to take over full-time when Harrelson’s schedule is reduced even further. Stone told the Sun-Times of working with the two broadcasters:
"“It’s nice. I get two completely different broadcasts because it’s two different styles of play-by-play. ‘Hawk’ is a former player, an old-school guy with a certain way of doing things, and I try to fill in the gaps.”"
When Harrelson does retire for good, it will be the end of long career in baseball that dates back to his first season in minor league baseball, which was 1959. He played for nine years in the major leagues before becoming an announcer. He came out of the booth to be the White Sox general manager in 1986, a stint that lasted just that one year. He returned to the booth for the Yankees for two seasons, then came back to the White Sox in 1990, where he’s been ever since. When he exits the booth for one last time, there will be plenty of fans who will be happy to say, “He gone!” and plenty of others who will miss him greatly.