Missing Ernie
By Jack Lane
Sun contributor
We have all written a sort of eulogy to Ernie Harwell in our minds. While driving down roads, listening to other baseball announcers sing their operas … while sitting at the beach, drinking in the waves and wind and feeling there was just a little piece of summer missing … while hopping up from a dinner with friends to duck in and check the Tigers’ score. As we’ve written this article, as we’ve sorted through the feelings and the memories and the lessons and all the phrases, the one phrase that keeps coming to mind is that, after 42 years of being the sweet background melody of our summers, that sweet voice with all its lovely stories is finally, itself, long gone.
I miss him, terribly.
In a world where love is a hard notion to fully come to grips with, I can tell you unequivocally, I loved Ernie Harwell. He was the first refuge I knew in life — I could tune in his voice as I lay in bed and, pitch by pitch, the calamity of being the sixth child in a beehive of a family would fade and the world he created for me would come to life. Ernie painted vivid pictures for me, taught me about the great ballplayers of the ’20s and ’30s and ’40s who made up the history of this great game. He instructed me on the nuances of strategy and getting a good lead and holding the runner close and why a batter wants to work a pitcher. Ernie made me laugh with his tales of odd situations. He pointed out the little moments in a game as well as beautifully building the big moments into such a huge ball of anticipation that a boy of nine, laying in the dark, could barely breathe!
For the first time in my life, I could listen to someone who told me nothing but the truth. I don’t mean to slight my five brothers and sister but I had learned, painfully, that their version of the truth was a highly subjective matter. Not Ernie — whether it was leading up to a great rally or the delivery of terrible, terrible game-ending pop flies, I knew I could always count on Ernie to give it to me straight.
Along the way, though — and this is what I miss most about him being gone, he gave hope to every situation. To Ernie, the Tigers were never out of it. Ever! And, okay, even if they were, this somehow presented a silver lining to tomorrow’s game. Optimism is not an easy thing to teach. And I’m very happy Ernie was never put to the ultimate test in that department by having to broadcast Detroit Lions’ games. Although had he, my guess is the Lions would have won a few Super Bowls during his stay — that’s how much I believe Ernie meant to the world he moved through.
In the ’60s, when we were first falling in love with Ernie, he had the pleasure of sharing with us some great teams. The ’61 Tigers with Cash and his corked bat winning the batting title, and Kaline and Cash giving Maris and Mantle a run for the home run title. The build up to the eternally cherished ’68 team with so many hometown heroes.
Describing baseball games against the backdrop of what was happening in the ghettos and urban landscapes of the ’60s riots and unrest could not have been an easy task. One of Ernie’s greatest attributes was that he weaved real life into his telling of a baseball game. Can you imagine what was going through his mind on any given afternoon in ’67 and ’68 as he prepared to broadcast that night’s game? How he would work something in to soothe, if he could, the national beast that was rising in the heat of those nights? Ernie’s endless hope was always, always a beacon in any broadcast. Except for one horrible, dreadful moment — when the Tigers lost the pennant in the last inning of the last game of the ’67 season. I cried for hours. For the first time in my life, nothing Ernie could say could console me. My 11-year-old heart was hopelessly broken. Nothing — nothing! — would ever repair it, again. Except unless he could guide the Tigers to a World Championship the very next year.
When the Tigers won that pennant and appeared in the ’68 Series, I got to see a whole new side of Ernie. His choice to have Jose Feliciano sing that national anthem prior to game Five in Detroit brought us the first time any singer had ever sang his ‘own version’ of the great song. The controversy and Ernie’s insistence that it was a beautiful moment let me know that it was okay to be different and to stand up for something and someone who maybe wasn’t the popular choice.
The ’70s brought fading stars, bad teams and the one shining season of Mark The Bird Fidrych. Again, Ernie excelled at celebrating someone fantastically different and, again, Ernie sang us the sweet suspense that is baseball. As the ’70s faded, he again was the voice of a team that was building toward a World Championship, delighting us with all the little moments that turn rookies into stars.
The 80s brought the great ’84 team, the decline of that team and the bleak landscape of the ’90s teams. Through it all, Ernie was that wonderful bandleader of hope and all nights, sweet. I’ll not mention the idiotic period of Ernie being dismissed from the broadcast booth, other than to point out the obvious result — Tiger fans would have none of it. I would let him broadcast from heaven, if I could only figure out the technology. Although I’m fearful he might’ve finally run afoul of God with comments made at the end of the recent Galarraga perfect game.
The point to my little soliloquy, here, is that I know you loved Ernie, too. And I know for some of you it’s a little odd to think in terms of love when we’re talking about someone you possibly never met. But be at ease with your love — he had a three-hour conversation with you for most of the sweet weather nights for 42 years. And never once in those nightly conversations did he swear at you, chastise you or give you reason to dislike anyone other than the opposing team and an occasional umpire.
Ernie taught us how to hope, how to rally, how to not make excuses and how to come back tomorrow and play our hearts out. He taught us to respect our opponents, to savor our friendships and teammates and to do things the right way. He compelled kids to practice, he compelled adults to lay down the day’s troubles and pull for their beloved team. Ernie taught us so many life lessons over those 42 years that, with apologies to all good parents throughout our delightful state, I believe this sweet man from Georgia might’ve been the most important positive influence in the state’s history. At the least, I know it’s okay to feel that way.
Ernie loved life. He loved us. He loved the game of baseball. All of it, now, looooong gone … but a wonderful, deeply set part of us, forever.
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Box score for Armando Galarraga’s Perfect Game
From staff reports
If in no other newspapers across America, here at least is the way the Detroit Tigers’ box score should have looked after Armando Galarraga’s Perfect Game that wasn’t … with only 27 Cleveland batters faced, and goose eggs across the board.
Tigers 3, Indians 0
June 2, 2010
Cleveland ab r h rbi Detroit ab r h rbi
Crowe cf 3 0 0 0 Jackson cf 4 1 3 0
Choo rf 3 0 0 0 Damon lf 4 1 1 0
Kearns lf 3 0 0 0 Kelly lf 0 0 0 0
Hafner dh 3 0 0 0 Ordonez rf 4 0 1 1
Peralta 3b 3 0 0 0 Cabrera 1b 4 1 2 1
Branyan 1b 3 0 0 0 Boesch dh 3 0 1 0
Grudziel… 2b 3 0 0 0 Guillen 2b 3 0 0 0
Redmond c 3 0 0 0 Inge 3b 3 0 0 0
Donald ss 3 0 0 0 Avila c 3 0 1 0
Santiago ss 3 0 0 0
Totals 27 0 0 0 Totals 31 3 9 2
Cleveland 000 000 000 — 0 0 1
Detroit 010 000 02x — 3 9 0
E: Choo (3). LOB: Cleveland 0, Detroit 4. HR: Cabrera (15), off Carmona. RBI: Ordonez (35), Cabrera (49). SB: Jackson (8).
Pitchers:
Cleveland ip h r er bb so np era
Carmona (L 4-4) 8 9 3 2 0 3 96 3.53
Detroit ip h r er bb so np era
Galarraga (W 2-1) 9 0 0 0 0 3 NA 2.57
Umpires: Home, Marvin Hudson; 1b, Jim Joyce; 2b, Jim Wolf; 3b, Derryl Cousins.
Time: 1:44. Attendance: 17,738.