Farewell to the Voice of Summer

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.

Ernie Harwell died this week.  For followers of this blog (present count:  0) who are not fans of baseball, or who did not grow up in Michigan, or who live in a cave, Ernie was a Hall of Fame sports broadcaster for the Detroit Tigers for well over fourty years.  I heard about it as breaking news late at night on May 4.  I was surprised to find myself weeping; although, in retrospect, it should have been no surprise.

Ernie was a part of my childhood.  He was a part of my teenage years, and throughout my 20s and 30s.  Coming from a family of four brothers, it was impossible not to be exposed to sport of every kind.  And so it was that I became a Tiger fan from childhood.  Maybe, had I grown up in this millenium, things would have been different, but back then, in the 1960s and 70s, I much preferred listening to the Tigers on radio, rather than watching them on television.  Like every teenager, I had a radio in my room, and, when the Tigers were not on, I was listening to some bubblegum pop music--Abba or David Cassidy (my finer tastes in music developed much later, I'm afraid).  However, I spent many a night in my room, listening to the dulcet, southern tones of Ernie Harwell for nine innings of Tiger baseball.  And so, when I heard the news about his death, it was not as if some famous person had passed away; rather, it was as if a longtime friend had left; and, in leaving, created an unfillable void. 

I cannot hear the voice of Ernie Harwell without thinking of summer, and without recalling those very carefree seasons of my happy youth.  Ernie Harwell goes hand in hand with the best times of life.  Southerners, and those living in more temperate climates may not truly understand it when northerns say that we "live for summer."  Here in northern Indiana, it often seems as if the sun literally hibernates for five months and the world appears as a bleak, black and white or grayscale photo.  And so, opening day was something to live for, because with Mr. Harwell's voice, came the sun and flowers and green grass.  Hide and seek, kick the can and wiffle ball out in the back yard.  Staying outside until 9:00pm (my brothers got to stay out later, much to my chagrin).  Lemonade, barbecues, Sunday trips with my family to Holland State Park.  Going to friends' cottages "up north", waterskiing, swimming, hitting the high dive at Soft Water Lake.  And often, it seemed, during those events, there was a radio on, and Mr. Harwell was delivering one of what my brother has called "his Erniesms."

Ernie had several phrases that were uniquely his own; and in reading any eulogy, one will see them listed.  My oldest brother claims to like Ernie's phrase after a strikeout: "He stood there like the house by the side of the road and watched it go by."  Sometimes, he mixed it up and said he was "called out for excessive window shopping."  I would say his signature phrase, which one needs to actually hear, was when someone hit a home run and Ernie would tell us it was "looooooooooong gone."  Hopefully, the batter at the time would be a Detroit Tiger.  My favorite Erniesm though, would go something like this:  "he popped it up foul, over the third base dugout.  And a man from Ypsilanti caught that one."  As a naive child, I actually envisioned that he must have gone out and met the folks in the stadium, and that's how he knew where everyone was from.  In my later years, I just smiled.  It was Ernie's way of giving a "shout out" to people from whatever town he selected at that point--almost always a Michigan town.

We often use the word "hero" to define our great sports figures.  But more often then not, the word is misused.  O.J. Simpson was a hero to many.  Ben Roethlesberger, Tiger Woods, Jose Canseco, Mark McGuire.  The truth is, these guys were not heroes.  They were, or are, merely talented athletes.  Ernie Harwell, though, was a true hero.  He was a hero because he was a good man.  Fame did not spoil him.  He had a talent, but always gave credit where credit was due: to God.  Ernie was a devout Christian, and he was not embarrassed to admit it.  And there were no complaints from the ACLU or the anti-theists across the country when Ernie mixed God with baseball.  Tiger fans would never have allowed it. 

Ever important to us, Ernie was appreciative of his fans.  I think I was more of a fan of Ernie Harwell than of the actual Tiger ballplayers.  That's because he was a constant.  I went away to college, and, in New Orleans, it was nearly impossible to get any baseball information.  They didn't have a major league team in New Orleans, and so they didn't bother announcing baseball scores on the nightly news.  Tigers players came and went during my undergraduate and graduate years, and so I didn't always know who was playing for them.  Maddengly, they won the World Series in 1984, while I was in New Orleans in graduate school.  The Internet did not yet exist, and my Tiger news was read from small snippets in USA Today or the Times Picayune.  After graduate school, I moved to South Bend.  One would think that, six miles south of the Michigan border, I could have tuned into Tiger baseball on the radio.  NOT TRUE.  And so, the summers of 1986-1992 saw me hopping in my car in the evening, and driving north over the border until my radio would pick up Ernie's call.  I would find an inland Michigan lake, park there and listen to the game.  The team members changed, but Ernie was always there.  That is, until he was FIRED!  The Detroit Tiger administration actually opted not to renew his contract sometime around 1992.  All of Michigan was in an uproar.  All of the sports world, in fact, was in an uproar.  What a bunch of idiots.  When Mike Ilitch bought the team, he took Ernie back--he did television for awhile, but then returned to his home on the radio until he retired in 2002.

I met Ernie once.  I went, with a friend from Detroit, to a game.  Going to see a Tiger game was always a huge deal.  I have no way of describing the feeling one gets walking through the entry gates and seeing, for the first time, the green grass of a major league ballpark.  Despite my dismal record (the Tigers are 1-4 for my visits), it was always a thrill to be there.  But this one particular time, I decided I wanted to try and seek out Ernie Harwell.  He was my favorite Tiger.  The usher directed us to the broadcast booth, where we waited patiently for him to exit after the game.  And when he did, I was like a tongue-tied idiot.  I stuttered and had no idea what to say.  I didn't necessarily want his autograph--I'm not an autograph collecter, because I would just lose it.  I just wanted to meet the guy who was so much a part of my youth.  And Ernie was as gracious and kind as I expected him to be.  He asked me where I was from.  He shook my hand, and thanked me for taking the time to wait to meet him after the game.  He didn't seem to be in a hurry to escape me at all.  He made me feel like a star.

My best friend braved a snowstorm one night, to go to a bookstore signing featuring Ernie Harwell.  He purchased, for my 30th birthday, Ernie's book "Diamond Gems."  Ernie autgraphed it for me, wishing me a happy 30th birthday.  After I read it, I was moved to write my one and only fan letter to him.  Two weeks later, I received a hand written, personal letter from Ernie Harwell.  It was written on his own personal stationary.  And in signing it, he asked God to bless me.  I still have that letter, inserted inside his book.  I will keep it forever, if I don't lose it.

In the movie "A League of their Own", Tom Hanks yells at one of his female players: "There's no crying in baseball."  Well, just for today, there is crying in baseball.  The voice of the gentle southern gentleman from Georgia has gone silent.  Rest in peace Ernie.  I hope there is baseball in heaven.