Ernie Harwell - RIP

[Chuck Nessa]

read here

[ghost of miles]

John Sterling was paying tribute to him earlier tonight during the Orioles-Yankees broadcast.

[Jazzmoose]

I heard him far too few times, but he was the voice of baseball as far as I'm concerned.

[Joe G]

Great article on what certainly appears to be a genuinely good man. Haven't listened to baseball in years, but I can easily conjure up the sound of his voice.

[Quincy]

I grew up 550 miles away from Detroit, but on certain nights I could pick up Tiger games on the AM radio, listening with an ear piece and yes, I was the stereo typical kid, so sometimes under the covers. I rarely saw Al Kaline on TV but he came to live on via those broadcasts. R.I.P. Mr. Harwell, if I may use the royal "we," we loved ya!

[Dan Gould]

Excerpt from Ernie Harwell's HoF induction speech:

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 game 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.

More here.

[vajerzy]

I listened to him when I was a kid in NJ and the Tigers were on the west coast- I could pick up the late night signal- and I loved listening to him. It was fun picking up the various cities- St. Louis, Cincy, Cleveland, Boston, and of course Philly and NY. Now I have XM and it's all too easy to get games now.

I'm appreciating Vin Scully for his game-calling. Just him- no announcer with him.

I enjoyed Ernie Harwell. He was good and he seemed to be a nice man.

[Hot Ptah]

When I lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the late 1970s, I was impressed with how Ernie Harwell seemed to be a universally beloved figure, among people of all races and all walks of life. He was truly a Detroit area icon. Love of Ernie Harwell seemed to be one of the few things that everyone in the area could agree on.

As I was a diehard Milwaukee Brewers fan, of the George Bamberger Brew Crew era, I hoped that Ernie was announcing a Tigers loss every night, but I did like his announcing style when I would overhear a Tigers game.

Driving around Detroit with a Milwaukee Brewers bumper sticker on my car was not the smartest thing to do back then. I was not physically assaulted, but received plenty of verbal abuse and gestures from other drivers.