Ernie Harwell Well Wishes Thread

[KCK_Halo]

Tigers announcer Harwell has cancer - MLB News - FOX Sports on MSN

Thoughts and prayers go to an absolute legend in sports casting. Godspeed, Mr. Harwell.

 

[Will94]

So sorry to hear this. I think he has the best voice of any radio guy ever, including Vin Scully. I love the story of him being traded. Best wishes to Mr. Harwell.

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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 brought to Brooklyn to substitute for regular Dodger announcer Red Barber, who was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer.)

 

[Rob7]

Ernie was certainly the best of the best. Few of us on this forum will live to be 91, and he has had a great life. Certainly a class guy, he will be missed.

 

[stmcld]

Huge fan of Ernie and I just love his Hall of Fame speech.

Baseball is the President tossing out the first ball of the season and a scrubby schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm. A tall, thin old man waving a scorecard from the corner of his dugout. That's baseball. And so is the big, fat guy with a bulbous nose running home one of his (Babe Ruth's) 714 home runs.​

There's a man in Mobile who remembers that Honus Wagner hit a triple in Pittsburgh forty-six years ago. That's baseball. So is the scout reporting that a sixteen year old pitcher in Cheyenne is a coming Walter Johnson. Baseball is a spirited race of man against man, reflex against reflex. A game of inches. Every skill is measured. Every heroic, every failing is seen and cheered, or booed. And then becomes a statistic.​

In baseball democracy shines its clearest. The only race that matters is the race to the bag. The creed is the rulebook. Color merely something to distinguish one team's uniform from another.​

Baseball is a rookie. His experience no bigger than the lump in his throat as he begins fulfillment of his dream. It's a veteran too, a tired old man of thirty-five hoping that those aching muscles can pull him through another sweltering August and September. Nicknames are baseball, names like Zeke and Pie and Kiki and Home Run and Cracker and Dizzy and Dazzy.​

Baseball is the cool, clear eyes of Rogers Hornsby. The flashing spikes of Ty Cobb, an over aged pixie named Rabbit Maranville.​

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.​

Why the fairy tale of Willie Mays making a brilliant World's Series catch. And then dashing off to play stick ball in the street with his teenage pals. That's baseball. So is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrig saying., "I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.”​

Baseball is cigar smoke, hot roasted peanuts, The Sporting News, ladies day, "Down in Front", Take Me Out to the Ball Game, and the Star Spangled Banner.​

Baseball is a tongue tied kid from Georgia growing up to be an announcer and praising the Lord for showing him the way to Cooperstown. This is a game for America. Still a game for America, this baseball! Thank you

Him and Jack Buck were two of my favorites and the greatest in my lifetime. Good luck and may God continue to bless and comfort you Ernie.

 

[Jimbo]

Ernie was certainly the best of the best. Few of us on this forum will live to be 91, and he has had a great life. Certainly a class guy, he will be missed.

Ummmm....
He's still here ...
He just announced that he has cancer.

 

[riffjim4069]

I just read this in the news...sad, but certainly not unexpected at age 91. Although the tumor inoperable, there is still hope we'll have Ernie around a few more months and even years.

 

[jcrandall]

He told the Detroit free press he will not seek treatment and has been given a few months up to a year to live.

Truly sad, but Ernie had lived a wonderful, prosperous life. It sounds like he is at peace.

A true hall of famer, and a fine gentleman, I miss his voice every summer, and will miss knowing he is around. I hope he enjoys his family and remains comfortable.

 

[Claude Greiner]

I think Ernie knew he had cancer last year when he resigned from the Old Tiger Stadium conservancy.

I had the pleasure of speaking to Ernie Harwell twice on the telephone while he was helping get donations to save Tiger Stadium.

 

[goreds2]

Best wishes to him. I hope he does not suffer in this ordeal.

 

[riffjim4069]

Still sending best wishes to Ernie Harwell and family. I cannot imagine having lived my childhood without listening to Ernie call the game on my transistor radio until the final out when I should have been sleeping. Every city should have an Ernie Harwell clone calling the play-by-play.