By John Minnis
Legal News
I grew up listening to baseball. Or, rather, I grew up listening to Ernie Harwell, the “Voice of the Detroit Tigers.”
Actually, my memories are nothing compared to my wife’s. She recalls as a little girl while visiting relatives outside St. Louis in the summer going out the car with her dad and tuning in WJR to catch the game.
Shortly after we were married, Terry and I purchased season tickets at Tiger Stadium. That was a considerable expense at the time. (And still is!) We would often see Ernie and Paul Carey making their way from the field to the broadcast booth. They always had a smile and a pleasant “hello” or “good afternoon” to offer.
We went to a lot of Tigers road games in Toronto. We would find out where the Tigers were staying and would book rooms in the same hotel. Those were the days when players were more approachable.
Over the years, some players began to avoid and even resent autograph-seekers. But not Ernie Harwell. He never turned down an autograph - even when he was in a hurry.
Once in Toronto he was on way to the hotel’s currency exchange window before going to the SkyDome (as it was called then). I yelled out, “Mr. Harwell! Can I have an autograph?” He hesitated, looked at his watch, glanced at the exchange window. Then something visibly crossed his mind. He stopped, smiled and said, “Sure, no problem.”
That was Ernie Harwell for you, always giving more than taking.
His agent and friend, Grosse Pointe attorney S. Gary Spicer, said Ernie was still signing everything anyone sent to him up until he became too ill to do so.
Harwell died May 4 at the age of 92, just eight months after he announced to fans at Comerica Park that he had incurable bile duct cancer.
Once in the late 1980s or early 1990s, we got a chance to hear Ernie speak at a fundraiser for CATCH, former Tigers manager Sparky Anderson’s charity for children. Tickets cost $100 apiece. At the time, that, too, was a considerable fortune.
It was worth it. The banquet hall was small and intimate, and we felt Ernie was talking just to us. He told about how he was a writer for the Atlanta Constitution and he aspired to be a baseball broadcaster. He recalled how he would go for walks with Lulu (his wife) and he would practice announcing games.
One wonders, was he “announcing” a game, play by play, from memory? Remarkable.
Ernie Harwell set a standard of human behavior few of us, if any, will every meet. But the goal, the challenge, is a worthy one.
In a simple, full-page ad in Thursday’s Detroit Free Press, the Tigers organization summed up Ernie’s impact on the community best:
“For over forty years, Ernie Harwell was the voice who warmed us in the spring, soothed us in the summer, and, if we were lucky, thrilled us in the fall. He was more than just a man behind a microphone.
“He was our friend.
“He was our family.
“And he will be missed.”
