Harwell Is Ready to Get Back to the Radio Booth

DETROIT — The voice. Through more than a half-century of broadcasting major league baseball, covering champions, also-rans and everything in between, Ernie Harwell has always had that distinctive voice.

Its soothing tones, with lingering traces of a Georgia boyhood, carry the promise of another spring and a ray of summer hope for Detroit Tigers fans.

Sometimes the voice is just a reminder of home.

Lulu Harwell, his wife of 58 years, recalls when she and Ernie were touring Jerusalem a few years ago. As a tour guide was explaining things at an ancient church, her husband asked him a question.

“The tour guide’s mouth just dropped,” Lulu says. “He said, ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s you! It’s really you!’

“It turns out the man was from Hamtramck and grew up listening to Ernie on the radio.”

Now the 80-year-old Harwell, who served as the radio voice of the Tigers from 1960-91, is returning to the WJR broadcast booth for the next two seasons and will be paired with color analyst Jim Price.

“We just feel fortunate to have a guy, even at his age, who wants to be there every day,” says David Glazier, the club’s vice president of business operations. “There’s no question he can do it.”

In addition to spinning yarns about baseball legends from Ty Cobb to Mark McGwire, Harwell describes the game with accuracy and flair. Decades of devoted listeners have learned to lean into Harwell’s wit the way Tony Clark leans into a Tim Belcher fastball.

Foul balls into the stands are always caught by a man from whatever small town comes quickly to his mind.

When a batter takes a called third strike, Harwell will say: “He stood there like the house by the side of the road.”

And a home run is, “Long gone!”

But not Harwell.

His two-year contract means that he will call the final season at Tiger Stadium as well as the first season at the new downtown ballpark in 2000.

After that?

“Well, I don’t know,” says Harwell, who turns 81 on Jan. 25. “I think I’ll take it as it comes. A lot will depend on whether anybody listens to me, and whether I’m any good.

“I’m sure I’m a good enough judge to know if I’ve lost it. And, if I’m not, there will be plenty of people to tell me.”

Harwell got his first major league radio job in 1948 in an odd sort of trade, when the Atlanta Crackers agreed to let him go to Brooklyn in exchange for Cliff Dapper, a minor league catcher in the Dodgers’ farm system. He’s been calling games ever since, first on radio, later on TV.

He replaces Frank Beckmann, who wanted to cut some of the travel after being the voice of the Tigers for four seasons. He will take on some of the 65 television games Harwell used to do.

But wait a minute. If the rigors of a 162-game schedule are too much for a man in his mid-40s, how does Harwell do it?

Faith and physical fitness.

A new study by the National Science Foundation says people who attend weekly religious services live longer. Religion has been a regular part of Harwell’s life since his boyhood in Atlanta, where he delivered Margaret Mitchell’s newspaper.

“Faith is the No. 1 thing, but that doesn’t mean just going to church,” Harwell says. “A lot of people who go to church every Sunday don’t have a good relationship with Jesus. And that’s the main thing with me.”

Exercise is a regular part of Harwell’s routine as well. When he’s home, he skips rope and works out on a trampoline. On the road, he takes brisk daily walks.

“Well, I’ve exercised all my life,” Harwell says. “I feel just as good now as I did 15 years ago.”

Harwell has missed only two broadcasts in his career--once to be inducted into the National Sportscasters Hall of Fame and another to attend a brother’s funeral.

“He just loves baseball,” Lulu Harwell says. “He’s been that way as long as I’ve known him.”

His return to the radio booth is certain to be popular. Except for 1992, Harwell has broadcast Detroit’s games on radio or TV every year since 1960. But it is 1992 that is most often recalled.

Harwell was fired by the Tigers and WJR in 1990 and allowed a tribute season in 1991. The firing was one of the biggest PR disasters in Detroit sports history.

Rick Rizzs and Bob Rathbun had the no-win task of trying to replace Harwell and longtime partner Paul Carey, who retired. They never caught on in Detroit. Never had a chance, really.

Harwell spent 1992 doing the CBS game of the week and briefly worked on California Angels broadcasts.

When Mike Ilitch bought the Tigers, he hired Harwell in 1993 to be the third man in the radio booth. He switched to TV in 1994.

“Television is nice, but I really enjoy radio, because you’re in every game,” he says. “Every pitch is a challenge.”

Since he came to Detroit in 1960, his voice has been a friend to listeners. It is with them as they drive to cottages. It is background as they paint garages or wash the dishes.

“I think his main attribute is just being the same all the time,” Lulu says. “Ernie has never thought of himself as a celebrity.”

Of course not. That would be the voice.