Goodbye Ernie Harwell
What I've Learned So Far...
One of my all-time heroes left our world today. Ernie Harwell, the Hall of Fame broadcaster who used his gifts to transform Detroit Tiger games into works of art, passed away today at the age of 92. Here is a column I wrote last year, when Ernie told us all that he had inoperable late-stage cancer, and that he would soon be leaving his wife Lulu and all his loving fans behind.
I moved to Southeast Michigan on a blind date in the Spring of 1975. When I arrived I was a White Sox fan, mostly because I had spent my formative high school years within easy obscenity-shouting distance of Chicago. Back in those days, probably the best thing about our pathetic Sox was a broadcaster named Harry Caray, who was known for saying "Holy Cow!" Harry used this as a fairly transparent substitute for shouting obscenities .
As that first summer unfolded, two amazing things happened more or less reshaped my life. First, Nan and I decided that the blind date was going well enough to get married, which is bound to make a summer stick in your mind, just about any way you cut it.
Second, I discovered the Detroit Tigers and a baseball play-by-play man named Ernie Harwell.
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- mike
Mike Ball
Author of What I've Learned So Far...
Winner of the 2003 Erma Bombeck Award
Web: whativelearnedsofar.com
E-mail: mike@whativelearnedsofar.com
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posted by Mike Ball @ 10:35 PM
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