CSNbbs

at least for those who grew up as sports fans in this state.




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.

http://www.freep.com/article/20090903/NE...l-s-spirit

Love the guy.

Last inning but going out a winner.

Watched him and George Kell call games on WWMT with my older brother and my Grandpa when I was a kid.

Also little known about Ernie was he landed at Wake Island in WWII when the troops came back to capture that little coral atoll some 66 years ago as a press representative...Thanks Ernie for everything...the memories will last forever just like that foul ball caught by a gentleman from Kalamazoo-ME.

Wow, total class till the end.

Ole' Ern is surely in God's HOF.

Take it easy guys, he isn't gone yet! He could last for years, you never know.

(09-04-2009 10:26 AM)BroncoPhilly Wrote: [ -> ]Take it easy guys, he isn't gone yet! He could last for years, you never know.

Not the way he was quoted in the FREEP - a year or less, maybe much less.

If he's 91 now he has good genes. Anyway, it's always a crap shoot with cancer.

Very sad. Ernie was/is one of the greatest baseball broadcasters ever. As cliched as it is, I remember lying in bed listening to him on the radio. I also remember visiting my grandma in Kentucky during summers and barely being able to pick up WJR to listen to him and the Tigers.

He sure can paint a picture with his words. He's 100x the broadcaster than anyone else today (save Vin Scully). Jim Price is the anti-Ernie Harwell.

I agree with everyone. The first thing I heard when I arrived in Kalamazoo in the summer of 1970 for orientation was Ernie calling a game in the bus stattion. He was truly summer.

^^Agree totally, General. I remember as a wee lad laying in bed under the covers with my transister radio listening to Ernie and his distinctive voice broadcasting the Tigers when they were on the west coast and mom wanted us asleep an hour ago.

My favorite Ernie-ism was something like this:

"Kaline fouls it off. A man from Hamtramck caught that one!"

Two years ago after my Rockies made their run to the World Series, the local broadcaster Fox Rocky Mountain had a program on looking back on the 2007 season. It was narrated by - Ernie Harwell. Nothing like the voice of that pro to lend a sense of credibility. I recorded that and burned a DVD to save.

Best wishes to Harwell and his family.

We will trully miss him a legend at least.

I just checked.

Why isn't he in Cooperstown?

He should be inducted before while he can appreciate it!

Just don't anyone bring up Bob Eufer as a "Michigan Treasure" or I'm going to decorate my keyboard with my breakfast. That guy was a Gomer Homer and nutcase.

Sad about Ernie, but he was well-loved and lived a great life.

Nauseous at the mention of Eufer.

(09-06-2009 12:37 PM)steer Wrote: [ -> ]I just checked.

Why isn't he in Cooperstown?

He should be inducted before while he can appreciate it!

I believe he is in the Hall. Announcers get something like the Fred Frick award which inducts them...

Harwell was inducted into the Broadcasters-contributors wing of Cooperstown several years ago.

(09-06-2009 04:27 PM)thegeneral Wrote: [ -> ]

(09-06-2009 12:37 PM)steer Wrote: [ -> ]I just checked.

Why isn't he in Cooperstown?

He should be inducted before while he can appreciate it!

I believe he is in the Hall. Announcers get something like the Fred Frick award which inducts them...

I found it. The web site treats broadcasters like a footnote.
They should be equal to Executive/Pioneers.

Heck, even Charley Comiskey is in, and the cheapskate who created the conditions for the Black Sox.

Can't tell you how many nights I got busted listening to Ernie and Paul do west coast games on my transistor radio tucked under my ear beneath my pillow.

He is such a great/nice man, we all should pay him the ultimate gesture of respect and strive to be a little more like Ernie Harwell.