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Ernie Harwell passes away (1 Viewer)

Anthony Borbely

Anthony Borbely

Footballguy
UPDATE: Ernie Harwell passed away today (May 4, 2010).

RIP Ernie. :goodposting:

I figured I'd post this in a separate thread since everyone doesn't read the Tigers thread.

Link

Not even cancer diagnosis can shake Harwell's spirit

Legendary Tigers broadcaster reflects on career, looks to future with resolve

BY BILL McGRAW

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

His voice was clear, his spirit strong, his words tinged with humor.

But legendary broadcaster Ernie Harwell had bracing news to deliver Thursday: He has a tumor in the area of the bile duct. It is incurable. Yet Harwell said he feels calm and prepared for what comes next.

"We don't know how long this lasts," Harwell said in a phone interview. "It could be a year, it could be much less than a year, much less than a half a year. Who knows?

"Whatever's in store, I'm ready for a new adventure. That's the way I look at it."

Harwell, who gained an enormous following during 55 years as a major league baseball broadcaster -- 42 of them with the Tigers -- spent about a week in the hospital in mid-August with an obstructed bile duct, and tests revealed the tumor.

He is 91. Harwell, his family and doctors have decided against surgery or other treatment.

Asked what he wanted to have written about him, Harwell spoke about his fans and his faith.

"I don't want to make it too sweet because I don't want to get diabetes as well as this other stuff," he said, chuckling.

Speaking of his many admirers across North America, Harwell added: "I'd like to thank them for their loyalty and support over the years. And their affection, which I don't know whether I deserve or not, but I accept it.

"And also, I think that when I heard the news, that I had this cancer, that I had a feeling of security and serenity ... but I had a feeling of acceptance because of my belief in Jesus and the Lord."

Harwell praised his family, his longtime adviser Gary Spicer, and his doctors and the medical staff in the Henry Ford Hospital system.

In a statement, Michael Workings, team physician for the Detroit Tigers and a Henry Ford Hospital family medicine physician who is part of Harwell's care team, said: "Mr. Harwell is a beloved and iconic figure who has touched so many lives across Michigan through his Hall of Fame broadcasting career and support in the community."

Since retiring in 2002, Harwell has remained busy, writing three books that have been published by the Free Press, releasing an audio scrapbook of his interviews and famous broadcast moments, and working as a health and fitness advocate for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

"Ernie has literally changed people's lives through his efforts to communicate about the benefits of healthy behavior, and we are grateful to him for that," said Blues President and Chief Executive Officer Daniel Loepp. "He has been an inspiration to all of us at the Blues who have the honor of knowing him."

Harwell said he plans to retire from his job with the Blues after he records two commercials next week. He plans to complete a fourth book of his columns, which have run for years in the Free Press sports section. The final column is scheduled to appear at the end of the month.

Harwell said he feels good but has been forced to cut back on his daily exercise routine.

"I don't have any pain at the moment," he said. "Because I've lost weight, I can eat almost everything I wanted to. I've come back to my childhood with ice cream and all those good things."

Harwell said his wife, Lulu, remains strong and shares his belief in God. They celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary Sunday.

"We walk hand in hand wherever we go," Harwell said. "We still love each other. She's the best thing that ever happened to me."

For the first time, his voice wavered, slightly.
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His voice, crackling over a pocket AM radio on a hot summer night is the best memory of my childhood. I love you Ernie.

Peace

 
For the love of all that is good and right, if the man can handle it....

Please let him call one more inning. Can i be that selfish and ask for that?

To hear....

"...and a fan from Kalkaska is taking that foul ball home"

"...and he stood there like a house by the side of the road."

"...and a special Tiger's Happy Birthday to Millie Jones, celebrating her 92nd at Shady acres in Jackson tonight. Happy Birthday Millie."

and that verse from the bible prior to the first game of preseason...

"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."

Please Mr. Illitch, if Ernie can do it, please let him. Please?

peace

 
One of the greatest human beings that I have ever had the pleasure to meet. Nothing but purity from his words to his soul.

Best Wishes Ernie.

 
All class, the best baseball broadcaster that ever lived IMO. Even those who don't think he's the best at least think he's one of the best and no one single person in the media or in entertainment has had such a positive influence on me personally. I became a broadcaster because of Ernie, I love the tigers so much because Ernie made them family when I was growing up. I probably listened to 1000 of his game broadcasts and never once did i not completely love it. He'll be missed, but he gave us so very much. Enjoy whatever time is left Mr Harwell, you will never be replaced in the Tigers booth. Never.

 
Doctor Detroit said:
All class, the best baseball broadcaster that ever lived IMO. Even those who don't think he's the best at least think he's one of the best and no one single person in the media or in entertainment has had such a positive influence on me personally. I became a broadcaster because of Ernie, I love the tigers so much because Ernie made them family when I was growing up. I probably listened to 1000 of his game broadcasts and never once did i not completely love it. He'll be missed, but he gave us so very much. Enjoy whatever time is left Mr Harwell, you will never be replaced in the Tigers booth. Never.
Click to expand...
Well said. I thought the video was also outstanding. Erine is all class all the time. :loco:
 
A class act and a true gentleman. I fondly remember listening to so many of his games on the radio growing up as a kid. I am thankful to have had the chance to do so. He will be missed.

 
I was having a private moment and actually shed a tear, then my wife started #####ing at me about laundry.

 
We all of have our favorite Radio Homer guys...mine is/was Nuxy.

Mr. Harwell however; aside from being a great human being, was one of those guys everybody loved regardless of who your favorite team is.

RIP!

:unsure:

 
I :popcorn: when my wife told me. I will always have the memories of listening to him on those summer nights while on the farm. Mr. Harwell is one of the reasons that I am a Tiger fan to this day. I hope that meets all of those people from Livonia, Paw Paw, and Traverse City that caught foul balls in Tiger Stadium.

 
Anyone have a link to Ernie's poem they are talking about on SportsCenter this morning? I'm having a hard time finding it.

 
Great Story

Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, and Baltimore Orioles

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.)

Rip Ernie

 
RockNRolen said:
Anyone have a link to Ernie's poem they are talking about on SportsCenter this morning? I'm having a hard time finding it.
Click to expand...
This is his last appearance at Comerica Park in September last season.

 
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RockNRolen said:
Anyone have a link to Ernie's poem they are talking about on SportsCenter this morning? I'm having a hard time finding it.
Click to expand...
The Game for all AmericaBaseball is President Eisenhower tossing out the first ball of the season; and a pudgy schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm.

It's 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 a scorecard from his dugout -- that's baseball. So is the 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 Sulphur Dell, the open stands in San Francisco, the dusty, wind-swept diamond at Albuquerque. And a rock home plate and a 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 statistic.

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 penicillin, asking his Brooklyn hosts to explain Dodger signals. It's Player Moe Berg speaking seven languages and working crossword puzzles in Sansrkit. 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 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 to 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 awakened 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, clear eyes of Rogers Hornsby, the flashing spikes of 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 a bat. Yet, as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. It's a sport, business -- and sometimes even religion.

Baseball is Tradition in flannel knickerbockers. And Chagrin in being picked off base. It is Dignity in the blue serge of an umpire running the game by rule of thumb. It is Humor, holding its sides when an errant puppy 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 a sweaty, steaming dressing room 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 hitch-hikes from South Dakota to Florida just for a tryout.

Arguments, 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, Cinderella, Paul Bunyan, Homer's Iliad and the Count of Monte Cristo.

Willie Mays making a brilliant World's Series catch. And then going home to Harlem 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'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 all America, this baseball.

A game for boys and for men.

 
JohnDoe said:
RockNRolen said:
Anyone have a link to Ernie's poem they are talking about on SportsCenter this morning? I'm having a hard time finding it.
Click to expand...
The Game for all AmericaBaseball is President Eisenhower tossing out the first ball of the season; and a pudgy schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm.

It's 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 a scorecard from his dugout -- that's baseball. So is the 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 Sulphur Dell, the open stands in San Francisco, the dusty, wind-swept diamond at Albuquerque. And a rock home plate and a 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 statistic.

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 penicillin, asking his Brooklyn hosts to explain Dodger signals. It's Player Moe Berg speaking seven languages and working crossword puzzles in Sansrkit. 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 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 to 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 awakened 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, clear eyes of Rogers Hornsby, the flashing spikes of 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 a bat. Yet, as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. It's a sport, business -- and sometimes even religion.

Baseball is Tradition in flannel knickerbockers. And Chagrin in being picked off base. It is Dignity in the blue serge of an umpire running the game by rule of thumb. It is Humor, holding its sides when an errant puppy 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 a sweaty, steaming dressing room 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 hitch-hikes from South Dakota to Florida just for a tryout.

Arguments, 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, Cinderella, Paul Bunyan, Homer's Iliad and the Count of Monte Cristo.

Willie Mays making a brilliant World's Series catch. And then going home to Harlem 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'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 all America, this baseball.

A game for boys and for men.
Click to expand...
Man, I wish I could still see baseball this way. It's long ago lost its romanticism for me. But great poem nonetheless and by all accounts a wonderful human being and a great announcer. RIP.
 
I'll always remember this:

"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."

 
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