Ernie

[Beanpot]

We all knew this day was coming.

 

Sucks all the same.

 

God Bless You, Ernie Harwell, and you too Lulu.

 

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

05/04/10 8:21 PM ET

 

DETROIT -- The man who will forever be the voice of the Tigers is gone, and the baseball community is left silent in remembrance. Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell passed away Tuesday at age 92.

 

Harwell succumbed to cancer of the bile duct. Doctors diagnosed the condition as an aggressive form in August, and Harwell and his family decided against surgery at his age. He explained his situation with an extraordinary sense of peace, both to his friends in the community and to fans at Comerica Park when he made one last visit in September.

 

"I've got a great attitude. I just look forward to a new adventure," Harwell told the Detroit Free Press when he disclosed his illness. "God gives us so many adventures, and I've had some great ones. It's been a terrific life."

 

It was a new journey, Harwell said, and he was ready for it. Still, many who knew him weren't quite ready to say goodbye.

 

Everyone knew this day was coming, but it didn't make it any easier to handle.

 

"He's going to pass at some point," former Tigers great Alan Trammell said during the 1984 Tigers reunion in September, "but the memories are always there, like Tiger Stadium. And obviously, being around him for so many years, there's a lot of good memories for me, and for a lot of people here."

 

Born Jan. 25, 1918, in Washington, Ga., William Earnest Harwell grew up an aspiring sportswriter, working as a paperboy in Atlanta and as a batboy for the Minor League Atlanta Crackers. He was just 16 years old when a letter he sent to The Sporting News led to a freelance job as its Atlanta correspondent. He spent his high school and college years working on the desk at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

 

He was on his way to becoming a sportswriter, but as he explained later on, life would put him on an unexpected path soon after he graduated from nearby Emory University. With writing jobs in Atlanta hard to find, Harwell auditioned for WSB radio in 1940 and earned a job hosting a sports show. His persistence landed him one of baseball's most coveted interviews at the time when he won over the reclusive Hall of Famer Ty Cobb.

 

Soon after, he broke into play-by-play broadcasting with the Crackers, his start in what ultimately became his profession.

 

"I'm a failed newspaper man myself," he recalled earlier this year. "I wanted to be a sportswriter when I was younger, working on the [Atlanta] Constitution, doing everything that nobody else would do. Thought maybe I'd be the next Grantland Rice, but it didn't happen. God had another plan for me. Couldn't get a job on the paper, and I got into radio. Stuck with radio and television, and it stuck with me up until 2002."

 

Harwell honed his broadcasting style with the Crackers, where his conversational style and southern accent took on polish. But it took baseball's only trade involving a broadcaster to break him into the Major Leagues. The Crackers let Harwell out of his contract to join the Brooklyn Dodgers as a fill-in for Red Barber in 1948 in exchange for Minor League catcher Cliff Dapper.

 

Harwell would stick in the Majors for more than a half-century. He went from behind the microphone of the Dodgers to the Giants (1950-53) -- Vin Scully succeeded him with the Dodgers -- then to the Orioles (1954-59).

 

Among Harwell's feats, he broadcast Bobby Thomson's home run to win the 1951 National League pennant, better known as "The Shot Heard 'Round the World," but his call of "It's gone!" ended up overshadowed by Russ Hodges' proclamation that the Giants won the pennant.

 

He was a household name in the business well before the Tigers hired him to replace Van Patrick in 1960. In Detroit, however, he found a home, on and off the field. Though he had better than four decades of broadcasting left in him, he was done moving.

 

Harwell spent 42 seasons broadcasting in Detroit, where his Georgia tones became part of the sound of Michigan summers. Through Harwell, fans came to know Tiger Stadium by its location on the corner of Michigan and Trumbull, recognized double plays as "two for the price of one," and home runs as "looong gone!" They still associate called third strikes with Harwell's phrase that the batter "stood there like a house by the side of the road."

 

Countless kids and more than a few adults wondered how Harwell knew the hometowns of so many fans who caught foul balls, whether Ypsilanti, or Sturgis, or whatever town Harwell wished to recognize.

 

The accolades deservedly followed over the years. He was honored with the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981, earned induction to the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 1989, then the radio sports Hall of Fame in 1998. His songwriting skills, more of a side effort he enjoyed rather than a second career, led to more than 60 recordings by various performers.

 

To those who came in contact with him, whether longtime friends, colleagues, players or fortunate fans, his legacy as a broadcaster is matched by his legacy away from the microphone. He got to know many Tigers players over the years not only through his job, but through an active role with the Baseball Chapel.

 

"The thing that you remember," Trammmell said, "is what a special man he is, the way he treated you. That's not easy to do."

 

The way he treated his situation, too, touched many.

 

"This whole community loves Ernie Harwell, and they should," Jack Morris said. "He's lived a full life, a life of kindness, grace and honor and goodwill."

 

Even those who had never met him until recently, until his illness brought him back into the spotlight, were in awe. The grace and the gratitude with which he stood and faced his condition was one more example for many to admire.

 

"What a tremendous man," said shortstop Adam Everett, who had the chance to visit Harwell at his home.

 

As Harwell talked with fans one last time from behind home plate at Comerica Park on Sept. 16, standing tall with his hands politely behind him, he turned his fate into a storybook ending in a way only he could.

 

"In my almost 92 years on this Earth, the good Lord has blessed me with a great journey," Harwell told fans, "and the blessed part of that journey is that it's going to end here in the great state of Michigan. I deeply appreciate the people of Michigan. I love their grit. I love the way they face life. I love the family values they have. And you Tiger fans are the greatest fans of all."

 

Said Morris: "He doesn't want people to feel sorry for him. I've never been an outwardly spiritual kind of guy, but I believe. He's going to get there first, and I hope he saves us a seat."

 

Harwell is survived by Lulu, his wife of 68 years, sons Bill and Gray, daughters Julie and Carolyn, and numerous grandchildren.

 

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20...sp&c_id=mlb

 

Beanpot

[Beanpot]

Here's his acceptance speech in Cooperstown nearly 30 years ago:

 

Thank you, Ralph Kiner and thank you folks for that warm Cooperstown welcome. This is an award that I will certainly cherish forever. I praise the Lord here today. I know that all my talent and all my ability comes from him, and without him I'm nothing and I thank him for his great blessing. I'd like for you to meet my very best friend and she is my best friend despite the fact that this month we celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary, Lulu Harwell. Lulu, will you stand up please. My son, Bill, right next to her, his wife Diane, their youngsters, my son, Gray, his wife Sandy, and their three youngsters, and my daughters, Julie and Carolyn.

 

I'm very proud of this award, but I'm even more proud of my family. You know the life and times of Ernie Harwell could be capsuled I think in two famous quotations, one from a left handed, the New York Yankee pitcher and the other one from a right handed English poet. The Yankee pitcher, Lefty Gomez, once said, "I'd rather be lucky than good. " And the poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson, once wrote in his epic poem Ulysses, "I am a part of all that I have met." Well, I know that I'm a lot luckier than I'm good. I've been lucky to broadcast some great events and to broadcast the exploits of some great players.

 

When I went to Brooklyn in 1948 Jackie Robinson was at the height of his brilliant career. With the Giants I broadcast the debut of Hall of Famer Willie Mays. When I went to Baltimore the great Brooks Robinson came along to replace my good friend George Kell at third base. Kind in my 22 years at Detroit it's been a distinct privilege to watch the day by day consistency of Hall of Famer Al Kaline. Yes, it's lucky that I've been there and I've been at some events too. I want to tell you about one that Ralph mentioned Bobby Thomson's home run October 3rd. I felt a little sorry for my Giant broadcasting partner that day, Russ Hodges. Ole' Russ is going to be stuck on the radio, there were five radio broadcasts and I was gonna' be on coast to coast TV and I thought that I had the plum assignment. Well, as you remember it turned out quite differently. Russ Hodges' record became the most famous sports broadcast of all time, television, no instant replay, no recordings in those days, and only Mrs. Harwell knows that I did the telecast of Bobby Thomson's home run. When I got home that night after the telecast she said to me, she said, ''You know Ernie when they turned the camera on you after that home run I saw you with that stunned look on your face, and the only other time I had ever seen it was when we were married and when the kids were born.”

 

That other saying, I'm a part of all that I have met, I think that would have to begin with my wonderful parents back in Atlanta when I was a youngster five years old I was tongue tied. They didn't have much money, but they spent what they had sending me to speech teachers to overcome the handicap. I know that a lot of you people who have heard me on the radio probably still think I'm tongue tied, but through the grace of God officially I'm not tongue tied any more. Also I'm a part of the people that I've worked with in baseball that have been so great to me, Mr. Earl Mann of Atlanta, who gave me my first baseball broadcasting job. Mr. Branch Rickey at Brooklyn, Mr. Horace Stoneham of the Giants, Mr. Jerry Hoffberger in Baltimore and my present boss, here's too the greatest ever, Mr. John Fetzer and Mr. Jim Campbell. I'm also a part of the partners that I've worked with and there have been so many great ones, beginning with Red Barber and Connie Desmond at Brooklyn and continuing on to my present partner WJR's Paul Carey.

 

But most of all, I'm a part of you people out there who have listened to me, because especially you people in Michigan, you Tiger fans, you've given me so much warmth, so much affection and so much love. I know that this is an award that's supposed to be for my contribution to baseball, but let me say this I've given a lot less to baseball than it's given to me and the greatest gift that I received from baseball is the way that the people in the game have responded to me with their warmth and with their friendship. Yes, it's better to be lucky than good and I'm glad that I'm a part of all that I have met. We're all here with a common bond today. I think we're all here because we love baseball.

 

Back in 1955, Ralph referred to this, I sat down and wrote a little definition of baseball to express my feelings about this greatest game of all. And I know that a lot of things have changed since then. Especially in this strike filled year but my feelings about the game are still the same as they were back then and I think that maybe yours are too. And I'd like to close out my remarks for the next couple of minutes with your indulgence to see if your definition of baseball agrees with mine.

 

Baseball is the President tossing out the first ball of the season and a scrubby schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm. A tall, thin old man waving a scorecard from the corner of his dugout. That's baseball. And so is the big, fat guy with a bulbous nose running home one of his (Babe Ruth's) 714 home runs.

 

There's a man in Mobile who remembers that Honus Wagner hit a triple in Pittsburgh forty-six years ago. That's baseball. So is the scout reporting that a sixteen year old pitcher in Cheyenne is a coming Walter Johnson. Baseball is a spirited race of man against man, reflex against reflex. A game of inches. Every skill is measured. Every heroic, every failing is seen and cheered, or booed. And then becomes a statistic.

 

In baseball democracy shines its clearest. The only race that matters is the race to the bag. The creed is the rulebook. Color merely something to distinguish one team's uniform from another.

 

Baseball is a rookie. His experience no bigger than the lump in his throat as he begins fulfillment of his dream. It's a veteran too, a tired old man of thirty-five hoping that those aching muscles can pull him through another sweltering August and September. Nicknames are baseball, names like Zeke and Pie and Kiki and Home Run and Cracker and Dizzy and Dazzy.

 

Baseball is the cool, clear eyes of Rogers Hornsby. The flashing spikes of Ty Cobb, an over aged pixie named Rabbit Maranville.

 

Baseball just a came as simple as a ball and bat. Yet, as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. A sport, a business and sometimes almost even a religion.

 

Why the fairy tale of Willie Mays making a brilliant World's Series catch. And then dashing off to play stick ball in the street with his teenage pals. That's baseball. So is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrig saying., "I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.”

 

Baseball is cigar smoke, hot roasted peanuts, The Sporting News, ladies day, "Down in Front", Take Me Out to the Ball Game, and the Star Spangled Banner.

 

Baseball is a tongue tied kid from Georgia growing up to be an announcer and praising the Lord for showing him the way to Cooperstown. This is a game for America. Still a game for America, this baseball! Thank you.

 

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hof/Ernie_...Induction.shtml

[Beanpot]

Here's a nice tribute to a real gentleman:

 

 

Beanpot

[JohnG71097]

I never met Ernie Harwell, in person anyway. But he was there for me. His voice used to boom out from the corners of Michigan and Trumbull to the little transistor radio hidden under my pillow in the evening hours, long before there was a "worldwide leader in sports". I was an Indians fan first but he helped foster a great love for the game of baseball and for that I am thankful.

 

 

 

"It's time to say goodbye, but I think goodbyes are sad and I'd much rather say hello. Hello to a new adventure. I'm not leaving, folks. I'll still be with you, living my life in Michigan -- my home state -- surrounded by family and friends," he said.

 

"And rather than goodbye, please allow me to say thank you. Thank you for letting me be part of your family. Thank you for taking me with you to that cottage up north, to the beach, the picnic, your work place and your backyard. Thank you for sneaking your transistor under the pillow as you grew up loving the Tigers. Now, I might have been a small part of your life. But you've been a very large part of mine. And it's my privilege and honor to share with you the greatest game of all," he said.

 

Good audio and Video job done by ESPN here also

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?i...er_espn_5163285