“Ernie” is a Tiger tale worth a trip to Detroit

ping

Ernie was the greatest Tiger of them all.

Ernies farewell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4rCyVbzpVk&feature=player_embedded#at=27

I remember Ernie Harwell, living in Cleveland we could get Tigers' games frequently at night. Never a Tigers' fan but he was so entertaining you just liked to listen to him.

I am truly sorry about Ernie, but with all due respect, NOTHING is worth a trip to detroit.

What’s sad is that it didn’t have to turn out this way.

Seeing this on YouTube brought back a lot of great childhood memories

The Year of the Tiger ‘68
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J4QU5lZFWY&feature=related

Ernie’s voice is as familiar as my own father’s.

Harwell famously opened every baseball season with a reading of the Song of Solomon 2:11-12.

For, lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of the singing of birds is come,
And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.

from Wiki

Ernie Harwell grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, working in his youth as a paperboy for the Atlanta Georgian; one of his customers was writer Margaret Mitchell. He was an avid baseball fan from an early age; he became visiting batboy for the Atlanta Crackers of the Southern Association at the tender age of five, and never had to buy a ticket to get into a baseball game again. At sixteen he began working as a regional correspondent for The Sporting News.

Harwell attended Emory University, where he was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and helped edit The Emory Wheel. After graduating, Harwell worked as a copy editor and sportswriter for the Atlanta Constitution. In 1943, he began announcing games for the Crackers on WSB radio, after which he served four years in the United States Marine Corps.

In 1948, Harwell became the only announcer in baseball history to be traded for a player when the Brooklyn Dodgers' general manager, Branch Rickey, traded catcher Cliff Dapper to the Crackers in exchange for breaking Harwell's broadcasting contract. (Harwell was brought to Brooklyn to substitute for regular Dodger announcer Red Barber, who was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer.)

Harwell broadcast for the Dodgers through 1949, the New York Giants from 1950–1953 (including his call of Bobby Thomson's "shot heard 'round the world" in the 1951 National League pennant playoff game on NBC television), and the Baltimore Orioles from 1954–1959. Early in his career, he also broadcast The Masters golf tournament,as well as pro and college football.

In 1960, Harwell became the "voice" of the Tigers, replacing Van Patrick. George Kell had begun doing Tigers radio and TV broadcasts in 1959, and was instrumental in bringing Harwell to Detroit. "George called and said, 'I recommended you and the Tigers asked me to get in touch with you.'" Harwell said. "I came and that was it."

Harwell teamed with Ray Lane in the broadcast booth from 1967-72. In 1973, Paul Carey replaced Lane, forming the Tigers' best-known broadcasting team, until Carey's retirement after the 1991 season.

On December 19, 1990, the Tigers and radio station WJR announced that the station wanted to go in a "new direction" and that 1991 would be Harwell's last, as his contract was "non-renewed". Fans across Michigan and throughout the baseball world were outraged, but the ballclub and the radio station (who eventually wound up blaming each other for the decision) stood firm: "(Harwell's firing is) not going to change no matter how much clamor is made over it," said team president Bo Schembechler. (The former University of Michigan football coach, a legend in his own right in the Wolverine State, continued to face harsh criticism before quitting in 1992, when owner Tom Monaghan sold the team). Rick Rizzs was hired away from the Seattle Mariners to call Detroit's games in 1992, teaming with Bob Rathbun, but they were not as popular as Harwell and Carey had been.

Harwell worked a part-time schedule for the California Angels in 1992. The following year, the Tigers were purchased by Mike Ilitch, who made it one of his first priorities to bring Harwell back. The 1993 season concluded with a three-person radio team (Rizzs, Rathbun and Harwell) with Harwell calling innings 1–3 and 7–9 of each game. From 1994 to 1998, Harwell called television broadcasts for the Tigers. In 1999, he resumed full-time radio duties with the team, swapping roles with Frank Beckmann (who had replaced Rizzs in the radio booth following the 1994 season), teaming with analyst Jim Price, and continuing in that role through 2002. During spring training of that year, Harwell announced that he would retire at the end of the season—this time on his own terms; his final broadcast came on September 29, 2002. Dan Dickerson replaced Harwell as the lead radio voice for the Tigers.

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Harwell's 1955 essay "The Game for All America", originally published in The Sporting News and reprinted numerous times, is considered a classic of baseball literature. He also authored several books, and penned an occasional column for the Detroit Free Press.

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Harwell made a cameo appearance in the 1994 film Cobb and in the made-for-television movies Aunt Mary (1979), Tiger Town (1983), and Cooperstown (1993). His voice can be briefly heard in the films Paper Lion (1968) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and in the TV movie The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2004). Harwell appeared as an interview subject in the 1998 documentary film The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg and contributed to numerous other baseball-themed documentaries and retrospectives over the years.

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A devout Christian, Harwell had long been involved with the Baseball Chapel, an evangelistic organization for professional ballplayers.

Harwell called his impending death, the next great adventure.

ERNIE HARWELL'S "THE GAME FOR ALL AMERICA"

The pressbox at progressive field is named after Harwell.

A "Love Note" Sent To Jim Robinson

“I do so enjoy these money raising pleas. Too bad you kicked off so many patriots back in the day that criticizing the big spending Bush was a cardinal sin on the so called conservative free republic.

Nope, I will happily continue to freeload information from this site. If the lights go dark, well, so be it...”

F(Reeper) I(n) N(ame) O(nly)

There are those who would love to see Free Republic shut down. If you can, donate and keep the lights on.

I admire the old time broadcasters who were capable of calling a game on their own, knew their stuff, and knew when to shut up.