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0 Subject: Ernie Harwell

Posted by: Texas Flood
- [7101698] Tue, May 11, 2010, 13:01

Seems kind of funny to me that the passing of one of the all time
great baseball broadcasters doesn't get a mention here at rotoguru.
I'm sure most of you didn't have the pleasure of listening to Ernie
summer after summer for 40 years. He and longtime mike- mate
Paul Carey, and to a lesser extent Ray Lane were what filled many a
summer evening or weekend at the lake in Michigan. You'll be
missed Ernie and thank you for the memories!

Just curious, who were some of your favorite baseball broadcasters?
1Khahan
      ID: 373143013
      Tue, May 11, 2010, 13:32
Growing up where I did it was Harry Calas all the way. These guys really do provide the voice of our pasts.
2blue hen
      Dude
      ID: 710321114
      Tue, May 11, 2010, 13:41
Harry Kalas is best announcer I've ever heard. I turned on MLB.tv's radio feed at the end of the 2008 NLCS so I could hear Harry announce it. Now I'm glad I did.

I also like Vin Scully (who doesn't?)- he has a great voice, and knows exactly when to get excited and paints a great picture of the game.

I'm a fan of some others: Mike Shannon, John Sterling, Jon Miller. Of ex-players on color commentary, Al Leiter and Ron Darling are two of my favorites.

Recently, I have been very impressed with Gary Cohen. Obviously, I get to listen to Gary a lot and we cheer for opposite sides in almost every game, but he just makes the game flow along so well. He even manages to put up with Keith Hernandez.
3Texas Flood
      ID: 7101698
      Tue, May 11, 2010, 14:02
As a kid I used to lay in bed at night and when the skip was just
right you could pick up guys from all over the midwest. I used to
see how far my radio would actually reach. Under the right
conditions I could pick up WGN Chicago, WWWE Cleveland, KDKA
Pittsburg, WBZ Boston, KMOX St Louis, WLW Cincinnati, WTMJ
Milwaukee...what good stuff that was. It wasn't just the call of the
game or the game itself, but the stories told and the personalities
were what made radio special. So many good announcers back in
the day. I couldn't tell you who the current Tiger radio announcers
are I seldom listen to the radio anymore.
4Great One
      ID: 4841108
      Tue, May 11, 2010, 14:02
Most people don't but I love the Morgan, Miller and Orel on Sunday Night ESPN.

Agree on Gary Cohen, I think he's the best of the current generation.

Former player insight I like Flaherty on the Yankee broadcasts as well for some reason. Maybe just because catchers are some of the most knowledgeable and know about pitching as well as hitting.

5Great One
      ID: 4841108
      Tue, May 11, 2010, 14:04
And I think Harry Kalas is my favorite all time.
6Texas Flood
      ID: 7101698
      Tue, May 11, 2010, 14:26
Love John Miller, he's old school. Good story teller. One of the
worst things that the Tigers did back in the 90's was to sell the
team to Tom Monaghan (Domino's Pizza). Monaghan hired Bo
Schembechler as GM and Schembechler promptly FIRED Ernie
Harwell. Detroit fans went nuts, they hated the new guys Rick
Rizzs was paired up with Bob Rathbun to form the worst radio
crew in Tiger history. When the team was sold to Mike Illitch(Little
Ceasars) the first thing they did was re-hire Ernie. Sanity was
restored, and Domino's Pizza has never been the same in
Michigan.
7Perm Dude
      ID: 5510572522
      Tue, May 11, 2010, 14:53
I think Guru mentioned it in a Daily blurb as well.

Announcers (particularly those who do, or did, radio) are geographically limited sometimes, but Joe Tait is a Cleveland institution for both Cavs and Indians games. For years it was Tait and Herb Score. I still remember listening to the Lenny Barker perfect game on the radio.
8blue hen
      Dude
      ID: 710321114
      Tue, May 11, 2010, 18:09
Honestly, there are a lot of good announcers out there. In the last couple years, with MLB At Bat, I've gotten to listen to a lot of them. Just this weekend, I listed to the Padres guys and was pretty impressed, although I don't remember their names.
9Building 7
      Leader
      ID: 171572711
      Wed, May 12, 2010, 14:30
I used to listen to Ernie Harwell back in the 60's and 70's. I remember the 1968 season when McClain won 31 games and they won the World Series. Back then, if you wanted to watch baseball on TV, there was the Saturday afternoon game with Tony Kubek and Kurt Gowdy or about half the Tiger games were televised. Radio was often the only way to follow a lot of games.

I remember one thing Harwell used to do on foul balls. He would say..." A youngster from Livonia caught that foul ball. Or a young lad with Troup 227 from Flint got the foul ball. Later, when I got older, I asked "Well how does he know who got the foul ball. He can't know eveybody in the stands." And it was just his way of recognizing the communities in and around Detroit. And work in a plug for any qroups visiting that day.

His statue in front of Tiger Stadium pretty much sums up what the people of Detroit thought about Ernie Harwell.
10Nuclear Gophers
      ID: 7115138
      Wed, May 12, 2010, 15:25
Bob Prince here in Pittsburgh, one of the greatest. Most of the nicknames of the Pirates in the 50s, 60s, and 70s were given by Prince. A lot of good phrases he had, "bug on the rug", "tweener", "you can kiss it goodbye", and also came up with the "green weenie". They would hand them out at the games at Forbes field and every body would shake them at the opposing batter. They were shaped like a banana, green and had little beads in them.

I dont know how many of you guys are hockey Fans but I think Eddie Olcyk(sp) who is the color guy with Emerick on versus and NBC is one of the best color commentzators in all of sports.
11PuNk42AE
      Donor
      ID: 036635522
      Wed, May 12, 2010, 17:15
Harwell was great growing up listening to Tigers games. Moving out East let me listen to Kalas for a few years, and of course Vin Scully. All 3 of them you instantly know their voice. I liked Josh Lewin who did the Tigers for a while in the Late 90's and is now in Texas.
12Toral
      ID: 4155487
      Wed, May 12, 2010, 23:04
Lots of games available at night in the summer back then -- most of the ones texas flood mentioned, plus WCCO in Minneapolis, WCFL in Chicago (the "Voice of Labor" -- CFL stood for Chicago federation of Labour) -- but the Detroit station was one of the few you could get in southern Ontario during the day, which gave Harwell daytime games by himself....For some reason the Harwell call I most remember is when Hank Aguirre, one of the worst hitting pitchers of all time, blasted a triple that was bouncing around the monuments at old Yankee Stadium. Don't think I ever heard him sound more amazed.

Bob Prince I remember for "a bloop and a blast". Whenever the Pirates got within 2 runs in the 9th, it was "all we need now is a bloop and a blast".
13judy
      Leader
      ID: 7771722
      Thu, May 13, 2010, 00:05
Harry Kalas was a good one, but the one I loved was Whitey Ashburn. The yarns he could tell
you... Loved the "oh brother" comment.

Bill Campbell was good too -- he did lots of Philly sports.

NB.. I can't STAND Chris Wheeler -- TMI and his tone of voice is so annoying, esp when a
player makes a mistake -- which they do. It is painful to listen to him!
14Great One
      ID: 4841108
      Thu, May 13, 2010, 11:19
and don't forget the crazy Harry Caray!

He was also well-known for his frequent exclamation of "Holy Cow!" As he noted in interviews and in his autobiography Holy Cow!!, he trained himself to use this expression, to avoid any chance of using profanity on the air. Caray also avoided any risk of mis-calling a home run, using what became a trademark home run call: It might be . . . it could be . . . it IS! A home run! Holy cow! In Holy Cow!, Caray said he first used the "It might be..." part of that expression on the air while covering a college baseball tournament in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in the early 1940s. He also said that was probably the first time he said "Holy cow!" on the air.

In 1987, the Cubs had Ryne Sandberg, Jim Sundberg, and Scott Sanderson on the roster. Caray had suffered a stroke in February and often confused these names and it was not uncommon for him to refer to "Jim Sandberg", "Ryne Sanderson", or "Scott Sundberg". He also once pronounced pitcher Jason Isringhausen as "Jason....Ice-ring-hoisen." Caray was intrigued by unusual names, and one of his frequent on-air bits was to try to pronounce a multi-syllabic name backwards. This bit became more challenging for him in the 1987 season but he kept on trying, even poking fun at himself. Two player names he took delight in pronouncing backwards were Toby Harrah and James 'Truck' Hannah. Even short names sometimes amused him: once, when Manny Mota had just lined out to a Cardinals fielder who did not even need to move his feet to make the catch, Harry proclaimed: "'Mota' spelled backwards is 'atom' ... and that's where he hit it, right at 'im'!"

Caray had a reputation for mastering all aspects of broadcasting - writing his own copy, conducting news interviews, writing and presenting editorials, covering other sports such as University of Missouri football, and hosting a sports talk program.He was considered a fan's broadcaster above all, along the lines of such announcers as New York/San Francisco Giants legend Russ Hodges or Pittsburgh Pirates legend Bob Prince, and that didn't always earn him respect to equal his popularity. However, Caray never pretended to be the kind of objective announcer that such broadcasters as Red Barber and Vin Scully prided themselves on being regardless of their team attachments.

15Nuclear Gophers
      ID: 7115138
      Thu, May 13, 2010, 15:31
Another Prince quote-"Chicken on the Hill with Will." Theres a section in Pittsburgh called the Hill district. They have a Kentucky Fried Chicken store there. Every time Stargell hit a home run any one in the strore would get their food for free. I think, not 100% sure, but I think Stargell Owned the store.
16Great One
      ID: 4841108
      Thu, May 13, 2010, 15:48
Thats pretty awesome, players should do that nowadays, a great idea for a promotion. You'd have extra business during every game.
17Texas Flood
      ID: 7101698
      Sat, May 15, 2010, 17:39
Anyone here ever listen to the raving maniac from Cleveland on
3WE radio, Pete Franklin? He was the Mark Levin of sports.

Harry Carey and Steve Stone were great on WGN TV. Harry was a
"Cub fan and a Bud Man". I love the Will Farrell SNL impressions
of Harry, "Hey, if you were a hot dog and hungry, would you eat
yourself. I know I would."

Ernie Harwell on a called third stirke. "He stood there like the
house on the side of the road."

I kind of like Hawk Harelson as the Chi Sox TV announcer and
don't forger Bob Uecker of the Brewers!

18Nuclear Gophers
      ID: 7115138
      Sun, May 16, 2010, 18:39
Bob Uecker in "Major Leagues" "Just a bit outside-Ball Nine"
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