Saying Goodbye to the Voice of the Detroit Tigers

The Detroit Tigers' 2009 season came to a gut-wrenching close on Tuesday night, but the stomach twists a little tighter knowing that legendary broadcaster Ernie Harwell has closed his final chapter as a Detroit Tiger. 

A championship farewell for Harwell would have been the simple storyline on which the ESPNs of the world thrive.  "Send him out a winner" they'd say, as though he were an ancient Egyptian pharaoh about to decorate his burial chamber with all manner of Tiger championship banners, caps, and trinkets.  Sadly, that focus would miss the larger picture.

The larger picture is the reflection on a legacy of verbal artistry, appreciated by a diminishing group of seasoned and discriminating disciples and a craft undeniably loved by its best practitioners.  It is an important one to remember because, like illuminations before the printing press, it is an expertise that is no longer economically feasible. 

The radio broadcast is not even in the backseat of sports media.  It has been kicked to the curb to hitchhike with NPR, still plodding forward, but advancing only via the last-resort necessity of taxi drivers or the generosity of old-fashioned nostalgia.

I consider myself one of the lucky few of my generation that will be able to recall sitting by the radio on a warm summer evening, watching the game scene through the mind's eye with Harwell's voice as director.

Other times he would deafen me on a Walkman over the roar of a lawnmower on a sweltering Saturday afternoon.  Suddenly, I would freeze in anticipation, shaving a bald patch on the lawn as a fly ball soared out to deep left-center, back to the warning track, and then the mower and I parted ways because someone needed to do the celebratory sprint-and-fist-pump that the passion in Harwell's voice clearly commanded.

Perhaps what made Harwell such a legend on the airwaves, aside from his trademark strikeout call ("He stood there like the house by the side of the road and watched that one go by!"), is the element of trust.

Unlike TV broadcasters, their radio counterparts have complete control over their audience.  How many times during a TV broadcast have you thought the commentator was watching a different game?  Radio renders that impossible - the listener is at the mercy of the man on microphone.  Harwell rarely, if ever, betrayed that trust.

He understood not just the facts of the game that unfolded in front of him, but also the essential emotional element.  Even though he was the only one actually watching the game, you felt like you were sitting right there next to him.  His effectively simple home run cry ("And it is LOOOOOOONNNG Gone!") would escalate in tone and volume to match its critical importance. 

I can hear his voice in my head calling Kirk Gibson's series clinching home run in the 1984 World Series, and, despite being only a year old at the time, it's his voice in that clip that gives me goosebumps today. The fact that his voice is indelibly etched on my brain is further testament to his ability.

These skills may sound rudimentary, but listen closely to some other radio announcers, and you will quickly appreciate the nuances of voice inflection.  A heightened tone on a routine ground out doesn't quite communicate the same urgency as a casual called third strike with two outs and the bases loaded.

Mastery of these skills is acquired from years of perfecting a craft not just in a technical sense but also with a personal touch.  A foul fly in the stands would prompt Harwell to declare, "And a young man from will take that one home!"  TV may bring the game to your house, but Harwell would bring you to the game.

It is bittersweet to write this conclusion, a reality check that the story, so wonderful in its telling, really is going to end.  But within that sadness lies the strength and the beauty of baseball—it passes from one generation to the next through the tales of its legends.  Harwell's statue in Comerica Park won't bring him back, but it will serve as a reminder that he is and will forever be a Tiger legend.

Thank you Ernie.  We will miss you.