Broadcasters by Year 1924 2006

By Wikipedia

William Earnest "Ernie" Harwell  is a former Major League Baseball announcer. For 55 years (42 of them with the Detroit Tigers), Harwell called balls, strikes, and home runs over the radio.

After graduating from Emory University, Harwell began his career as a copy editor and sportswriter for the Atlanta Constitution and as a regional correspondent for The Sporting News. In 1943, he began announcing games for the Atlanta Crackers of the Southern Association, after which he served four years in the Marines. 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 also play-by-play man for the New York Giants in the early 1950s (calling Bobby Thomson's "shot heard 'round the world" in the 1951 National League pennant playoff game on national television), then for the Baltimore Orioles in the late 1950s. Early in his career he also broadcast football and golf events.

In 1960 Harwell became the "voice" of the Tigers, replacing veteran broadcaster Van Patrick. He was known for his low-key delivery, southern accent, and conversational style, which included:

• Pausing periodically with the game action, allowing listeners to hear the sounds of the stadium
• Frequently referring to the location of Tiger Stadium -- the corner of Michigan and Trumbull
• Following up foul balls into the crowd with, "That one was caught by a fan from (insert name of local city or town)."
• Exclaiming on a called third strike, "He stood there like the house by the side of the road and watched it go by."
• Describing a home run, "That ball is looooong gone!"

In a controversial move, Harwell's contract was "non-renewed" (the current euphemism for being fired) by the Tigers and then-flagship station WJR in 1991, but a popular outcry led to his partial reinstatement on the team's television broadcasts the following year, after the Tigers franchise was purchased by Detroit businessman Mike Ilitch. He resumed full-time radio duties with the team from 1999 to 2002.

Nationally, Harwell broadcast two All-Star Games (1959, 1961) and two World Series (1963, 1968) for NBC Radio, numerous American League postseason series for CBS Radio, and the CBS Radio Game of the Week from 1992 to 1997. He also called the 1984 World Series for the Tigers and WJR.

Awards and Non-Broadcast Activities

Harwell was elected to the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame in 1989, the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 1989, and the Radio Hall of Fame in 1998, and was honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981 as the fifth broadcaster to receive its Ford C. Frick Award, among many other honors.

Harwell's 1955 essay "The Game for All America", originally published in The Sporting News and reprinted numerous times, is considered a classic of baseball literature. He has also authored several books, and pens an occasional column for the Detroit Free Press.

Harwell made a cameo appearance in the 1994 film Cobb. His voice can be briefly heard in the films Paper Lion (1968) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and in the TV movie The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2004).

In 2004, the Detroit Public Library dedicated a room to Ernie Harwell and his wife, Lulu, which will house Harwell's collection of baseball memorabilia valued at over two million dollars.

Books by Ernie Harwell

• Tuned to Baseball (South Bend, Ind.: Diamond Communications, 1985).
• Ernie Harwell's Diamond Gems, edited by Geoff Upward (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Momentum, 1991).
• The Babe Signed My Shoe: Baseball As It Was -- And Will Always Be, edited by Geoff Upward (South Bend, Ind.: Diamond Communications, 1994).
• Ernie Harwell: My 60 Years in Baseball, with Tom Keegan (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2002).

Broadcaster References