Obituaries -- names from the old Forum

[pbrower2a]

Ernie Harwell, long-time voice of the Detroit Tigers on radio broadcasts*

Quote:   William Earnest "Ernie" Harwell (January 25, 1918 – May 4, 2010) was an American sportscaster, known for his long career calling play-by-play of Major League Baseball games. For 55 years, 42 of them with the Detroit Tigers, Harwell called the action on radio and television. In January 2009, the American Sportscasters Association ranked Harwell 16th on its list of Top 50 Sportscasters of All Time.

   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 for a baseball game since then.

   Ernie attended Emory University where he was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity and where he helped edit The Emory Wheel. After graduating, Harwell began his career as a copy editor and sportswriter for the Atlanta Constitution and as a regional correspondent for The Sporting News. In 1943, he began announcing games for the Crackers on WSB radio, after which he served four years in the Marines.


   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 broacast 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; predictably, 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 Ernie calling innings 1–3 and 7–9 of each game. Rizzs returned to Seattle following the 1993 season. From 1994 to 1998, Harwell called television broadcasts for the Tigers. In 1999, he resumed full-time radio duties with the Tigers, 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.


   Nationally, Harwell broadcast two All-Star Games (1958, 1961) and two World Series (1963, 1968) for NBC Radio, numerous ALCS and ALDS series for CBS Radio and ESPN Radio, and the CBS Radio Game of the Week from 1992 to 1997. He also called the 1984 World Series for the Tigers and WJR.


   Following his retirement, Harwell came back briefly in 2003 to call a Wednesday Night Baseball telecast on ESPN, as part of that network's "Living Legends" series of guest announcers. In 2005, Harwell guested for an inning on the Fox network's coverage of the All-Star Game (which was held in Detroit that year), as well as an inning on the ESPN Radio broadcast. For Game 3 of the 2006 American League Division Series between the Tigers and New York Yankees, he provided guest commentary on ESPN's telecast for two innings, called an inning of play-by-play on the Tigers' radio flagship WXYT, and guested for an inning on ESPN Radio. Harwell also called one inning of Game 1 of the 2006 World Series for WXYT.

   Harwell served as a guest color commentator for two Tiger games on FSN Detroit on May 24 and 25, 2007. Harwell worked the telecasts (alongside play-by-play man Mario Impemba) as a substitute for regular analyst Rod Allen, who took the games off to attend his son's high school graduation. (Harwell had filled in for Allen once before, on a 2003 telecast.)

   He also appeared as a guest on an ESPN Sunday Night Baseball telecast in Detroit on July 1, 2007. His typical sense of humor was on display. He talked about working beside the deep-voiced Paul Carey ("next to him, everyone sounds like a soprano") for 19 years, "which seemed like 30." He then asked Jon Miller and Joe Morgan how long they had worked together. "19 years." Harwell grinned at both of them, "Uh-huh, uh-huh."

   Harwell occasionally did vignettes (small video clips) on the history of baseball for Fox Sports Detroit's magazine program Tigers Weekly.


   He was known for his low-key delivery, southern accent (Detroit "Ti-guhs"), and conversational style. Some of his trademark phrases were:

   * "That one is long gone!" (His trademark home run call, with an emphasis on "long")
   * "He stood there like the house by the side of the road, and watched it go by." (After a called strikeout)
   * "Called out for excessive window shopping." (Also after a called strikeout)
   * "It's two for the price of one!" (After a double play)
   * "A fan from (insert a city) will be taking that ball home today." (When a fan would catch a foul ball)
   * "The Tigers need instant runs." (When the team was behind in the late innings)

   Harwell would also begin the first spring training broadcast of each season with a reading from Song of Solomon 2:11-12 (KJV): "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."

   The National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association named Harwell as Michigan Sportscaster of the Year 19 times, and inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 1989. Harwell was also honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981 as the fifth broadcaster to receive its Ford C. Frick Award, and was elected to the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame and the Radio Hall of Fame in 1998, among many other honors. In 2001, Harwell was the recipient of the prestigious Ty Tyson Award for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting, awarded by the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association (DSBA). In 2009, Harwell was named the first recipient of the DSBA's Ernie Harwell Lifetime Contribution Award. The award, called the Ernie Harwell Lifetime Contribution Award, is named after the Hall of Fame Detroit Tigers announcer. Harwell is the first winner of the award. The award will annually honor an individual from the broadcast industry who has contributed outstanding time and effort to the betterment of sports broadcasting through a lifetime body of work. The Georgia Sports Hall of Fame inducted Harwell in 2008. In 2010 Harwell was named as a recipient of the Vin Scully Lifetime Achievement Award from Fordham University radio station WFUV. The press box at Detroit's Comerica Park was officially named the "Ernie Harwell Media Center" following his retirement from broadcasting.

   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.

   Harwell also wrote popular music. His first recorded song was "Upside Down" on the Something Stupid album by Homer and Jethro in the mid-1960s. In the liner notes of the album, it says: "Detroit Tiger baseball announcer wrote this one, and we think it's a fine observation of the world today, as seen from the press box at Tiger Stadium. We were up there with Ernie one day and from there the world looks upside down. In fact, the Mets were on top in the National League." All told, 66 songs written by Ernie Harwell have been recorded by various artists. "Needless to say, I have more no-hitters than Nolan Ryan." – Ernie Harwell in article published May 31, 2005 in the Detroit Free Press

   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 has contributed to numerous other baseball-themed documentaries and retrospectives over the years.

   The 1997 text-based computer simulation game APBA for Windows: Broadcast Blast features play-by-play commentary by Harwell.

   Harwell served as a spokesman for Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Michigan. His contract with the organization, which began in 2003, ran for ten years with an option for another ten. Had Harwell fulfilled the entire contract (by which time he would have been 95 years old), Blue Cross had pledged to extend it for yet another decade. Harwell formerly ran a blog

   about healthy living and fitness for BCBS. He retired from it on March 5, 2009.

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

   In 2004, the Detroit Public Library dedicated a room to Ernie Harwell and his wife, Lulu, which will house Harwell's collection of baseball memorabilia valued at over two million dollars.

   On April 26, 2008 Harwell was presented with an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from The University of Michigan at their Spring Commencement ceremony. One week later, on May 3, 2008, he was presented with another Honorary Degree of Laws this time from Wayne State University.

   In late 2008 Harwell began to appear in television public service announcements for the Michigan Association of Broadcasters, advising viewers about the DTV transition in the United States.

   Harwell was a member of the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy Board, an organization which attempted to save portions of Tiger Stadium. He offered to donate a large portion of his historic collection of baseball memorabilia, which he had collected over the course of his storied career, if part of Tiger Stadium could have been saved for a museum.

   On September 3, 2009, Harwell announced that he had been diagnosed with incurable bile duct cancer, and that he, his family and doctors had decided against surgery or other treatment of the condition.

   Harwell sat down for a 60 minute interview on an episode of MLB Network's Studio 42 with Bob Costas. The episode premiered November 17, 2009.

   Harwell lived in Farmington Hills, Michigan and moved to Novi, Michigan in the late 1990's where he lived until his death. At the time of his death at age 92, he still exercised regularly, did sit-ups, used a treadmill, and lifted weights. He was set to receive the Vin Scully Lifetime Achievement Award in Sports Broadcasting on May 5 in New York City, just one day after his passing. Harwell considered Scully to be the best broadcaster of all-time. However, in accepting the award on Harwell's behalf, Al Kaline noted "We Tiger fans respectfully disagree."

Speaking of baseball -- how did I miss Robin Roberts?