Ernie Harwell Tribute

This part of my webpage is devoted to a good friend of mine and great radio broadcaster. Ernie Harwell was born on January 25,1918 in Washington, Georgia. Ernie started his career broadcasting games for the Minor League team called the Atlanta Crackers and made the major leagues in 1948 by being the only announcer to be traded for a player named Cliff Dapper.

Ernie broadcasted for the Brooklyn Dodgers until 1950 before moving on to the rivals across the road - the New York Giants. Ernie was on hand for the famous game at the Polo Grounds on October 3,1951. He was calling the game on NBC Television unlike his partner Russ Hodges who made the call on radio. Bobby Thomson's Home Run allowed the Giants, who were 13 1/2 games back in August, to come back to win the National League Pennant against the Brooklyn Dodgers in a 3 game play-off. The Giants had Ernie's services until 1953 when he moved on again to become the first Announcer for the Baltimore Orioles who just moved from St. Louis at the start of the 1954 season. At the end of the 1959 baseball season Ernie got a call from former player named George Kell. He was calling Ernie to ask if he'd like to move on to call play-by-play for the Detroit Tigers for the 1960 season. It didn't take Ernie long to make the journey to Detroit. There Ernie stayed with the team until he was fired in 1991 by former University of Michigan football coach who was at the time President of the Detroit Tigers Bo Schembechler. Many of the Tigers fans were in an outrage over the firing of their beloved announcer so by 1993 Ernie was back in the radio booth where he stayed until the 2001 season. In 1981 Ernie got the call from Cooperstown and recieved the Ford Frick Award. He became the 1st announcer to be active when inducted to Hall of Fame. This was the last speech Ernie gave to great folks of Detroit on September 16, 2009 and his last apperance:

On May 4, 2010 Ernie lost his battle to Cancer and passed away. His voice will live on though out the hearts of many Michiganders and anyone else who followed the Detroit ball club.

In 1955 Ernie wrote "The Game for All America". Below is that great article.

THE GAME FOR ALL AMERICA      By Ernie Harwell     

Baseball is President Eisenhower tossing out the first pitch of the season; and a pudgy school boy playing catch with his father on a Mississippi farm. Its the big-league pitcher who sings in night clubs. And the Hollywood singer who pitches to the Giants in spring training. A tall,thin,old man waving his scorecard from his dugout-that's baseball. So is a big,fat guy with a bulbous nose running out one of his 714 home runs with mincing steps. It's America,this baseball. A re-issued newsreel of boyhood dreams. Dreams lost somewhere between boy and man. It's the Bronx cheer and the Baltimore farewell. The left-field screen in Boston,the right-field dump at Nashville's Sulpher Deli,the open stands in San Fransisco,the dusty, wind-swept diamond in Albuquerque. And a rock home plate and chicken wire backstop-anywhere.  There's a man in Mobile who remembers a triple he saw Honus Wagner hit in Pittsburgh 46 years ago. That's baseball. So is the scout reporting that a 16-year-old sandlot pitcher in Cheyenne is the new "Walter Johnson." It's a wizened little man shouting insults from the safety of his bleacher seat. And a big, smiling first baseman playfully tousling the hair of a youngster outside the players' gate. 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 statisic. In baseball, democracy shines its clearest. Here,the only race that matters is the race to the bag. The creed is the rule book. Color is something to distinguish one team's uniform from another. Baseball is Sir Alexander Fleming,discoverer of pencillin, asking his Brooklyn hosts to explain the Dodgers signals. It's player Moe Berg speaking seven languages and working a crossword puzzles in Sanskrit. It's a scramble in the box seats for a foul-and-a $125 suit ruined. A man barking into a hot microphone about a cool beer. That's baseball. So is the sports writer telling a .383 hitter how to stride, and a 20-victory pitcher trying to write his impressions of the World Series. Baseball is a ballet without music. Drama without words. A carnival without kewpie dolls. A housewife in California couldn't tell you the color of her husband's eyes, but she knows that Yogi Berra is hitting .337, has brown eyes, and used to love eat bananas with mustard. That's baseball. So is the bright sanctity of Cooperstown's Hall of Fame. And the former big leaguer, who is playing out the string in a Class B loop. Baseball is continuity. Pitch to pitch. Inning to inning. Game to game. Series to series. Season to season.  It's rain,rain rain splattering on a puddled tarpaulin as thousands sit in damp disappointment. And the click of typewriters and telegraph keys in the press box-like so many awaken crickets. Baseball is a cocky batboy. The old-timer whose batting average increases every time he tells it. A lady celebrating a home team rally by mauling her husband with a rolled-up scorecard. Baseball is the cool eyes of Roger Hornsby, the flashing spikes Ty Cobb, an overaged pixie named Rabbit Maranville, and Jackie Robinson testifying before a Congressional hearing. Baseball? It's just a game-as simple as a ball and as a bat. Yet, as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. It's a sport, business-and sometimes even a religion. Baseball is Tradition in flannel knickerbockers. And Chargrin in being picked off base. It is Dignity in the blue serge of an umpire running the game by the rule of thumb. It is Humor, holding its sides when an errant puppie eludes two groundskeepers and the fastest outfielder, And Pathos, dragging itself off the field after being knocked from the box. Nicknames are baseball. Names like Zeke and Pie and Kiki and Home Run and Cracker and Dizzy and Dazzy. Baseball is sweaty, steaming dressing rom where hopes and feelings are as naked as the men themselves. It's a dugout with spike-scarred flooring. And shadows across an empty ball park. It's the endless list of names in box scores, abbreviated almost beyond recognition. The holdout is baseball, too. He wants 55 grand or he won't turn a muscle. But, it's also the youngster who hitchikes from South Dakota to Florida just for a tryout. Arguements, Casey at the Bat, old cigarette cards, photographs, Take Me Out to The Ball Game-all of them are baseball. Baseball is a rookie-his experience no bigger than the lump in his throat-trying to begin fulfillment of a dream. It's a veteran too-a tired old man of 35, hoping his aching muscles can drag him through another sweltering August and September. For nine innings, baseball is the story of David and Goliath, of Samson and, Cinderella, Paul Bunyan, Homer's Iliad and the Count of Monte Cristo. Willie Mays making a brilliant World Series catch. And then going home to play stick-ball in the street with his teen-age pals - that's baseball. So is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrig saying, "I 'm the luckiest guy in the world." Baseball is cigar smoke, hot-roasted peanuts, The Sporting News, winter trades, "Down in front," and the Seventh Inning Stretch. Sore arms, broken bats, a no-hitter, and the strains of the Star-Spangled Banner. Baseball is a highly-paid Brooklyn catcher telling the nation's business leaders: "You have to be a man to be a big leaguer, but you have to have a lot of little boy in you, too." This is a game for America, this baseball! A game for boys and for men.

Baseball Umpire Country Joe West sings a tribute to Ernie Harwell