Ernie Harwell has terminal cancer; Not much longer for the Voice of the Turtle

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. --Song of Solomon 3:11-12

Yesterday, Ernie Harwell held a teleconference with the media to announce that he has been diagnosed with inoperable cancer.

Harwell, 91, was the voice of the Detroit Tigers from 1960-2002 and to me he will always represent the Tigers in my mind. When I think about 1984 or 1987, Kirk Gibson, Jack Morris, Sweet Lou Whitaker, Tommy Brookens "The Pennsylvania Poke"...every player who ever wore the Old English "D", the sound in the background is always Ernie.

"He stood there like the house by the side of the road."

George Kell and Ernie Harwell were what baseball sounded like in Michigan during my childhood. And it wasn't always Ernie's southern drawl...he had a gift for just the right amount of pause. So that the sounds of the ballpark rolled through your mind and you were right there in a seat on the third base line listening to the hot dog vendor screaming and smelling the peanuts.

"That one was caught by a fan from Petoskey."

In 1948, the Brooklyn Dodgers traded catcher Cliff Dapper to Atlanta to acquire Harwell. The only recorded time a player was traded for an announcer.

In his Hall of Fame career, Ernie broadcasted for the Dodgers, in 1948-49, the New York Giants, 1950-53, Baltimore Orioles, 1954-59, and finally the Tigers, 1960-2002 (missed 1992 after firing, did only television 1994-98).

"He's out for excessive window shopping"

This news comes especially hard to this Tigers fan. George Kell passed just a few months ago, Mark "The Bird" Fydrich passed just last year, and now Ernie.

The stadium at the corner of Michigan and Trumbell is in pieces, almost totally gone now.

The auto industry, the bread and butter of Michigan, is in shambles. Foreclosure rates in Michigan are at depression levels. Unemployment is skyrocketing....

I guess, this just seems to be piling on.

"That ball is looooong gone!"

Even with his terminal prognosis, Ernie continues to be upbeat.

"We don't know how long this lasts," Harwell said in the 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."

Ernie was a gift and in a time where things in the big mitten seem to be falling apart on a monumental scale, this hurts. Ernie's voice resonates in my mind like the voice of a relative in another room. And in a way, this feels like a relative has been handed horrible news.

So what do we have to look forward to?

Strangely, the Tigers. The team is currently in first place in September...in an exciting race to the pennant. The Magic number is down to 25. Justin Verlander is a real Cy Young candidate and Miguel Cabrera is a legitimate MVP candidate.

"Baseball is a lot like life. It's a day-to-day existence, full of ups and downs. You make the most of your opportunities in baseball as you do in life."--Ernie Harwell.

"Baseball just a came as simple as a ball and bat. Yet, as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. A sport, a business and sometimes almost even a religion." --Ernie Harwell

"But most of all, I'm a part of you people out there who have listened to me, because especially you people in Michigan, you Tiger fans, you've given me so much warmth, so much affection and so much love." --Ernie Harwell

Ernie was a gift to the people of Michigan during hard times as well as good times. During the '67 riots, during the '68 and '84 seasons...for most of my life. He will be sorely missed.

Thanks Ernie.

Ernie Harwell audio