Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
First Person is produced in cooperation with the Far East Broadcasting Company, who rejoice in the stories of changed lives through the power of Jesus Christ. Learn more at febc.org. It's a great movement, and I've seen a lot of the young men who thought they could reach fulfillment with their fame and money through baseball become Christians and change their lives completely through the baseball chapel. ♪
He died in 2010, but baseball announcer Ernie Harwell's life is still influencing players and fans today. Welcome to First Person, I'm Wayne Shepard.
With this weekend marking the end of baseball's regular season before the playoffs begin, we're reaching deep into the archive to play an interview with one of the great baseball announcers. Ernie Harwell was a follower of Christ who happened to spend his life in professional baseball. His stories of witnessing some of the great players of the past are matched by a few others, but it was this Christian witness that lives on. This and all of our past programs can be heard at FirstPersonInterview.com or use our free smartphone app to download and listen.
This interview was done at Moody Radio in Chicago many years ago following Ernie's retirement, and my thanks to Moody for permission to use it today here on First Person. As Ernie and I began talking, I told him that as a boy living in Michigan, I was mesmerized by his play-by-play of the Detroit Tigers, especially 1968 when they won the World Series. Well, those were great days. The Tigers were at their zenith at that time, and of course in baseball there's nothing like winning.
to attract an audience, and we had a great time with a 68 team. Yeah. Now, Ernie, bring us up to date. Your days in the Tiger booth are finished, right? That's right. I announced my retirement last February, said that the 2002 season would be my final one, and I got through it and finished up with a final game in Toronto against the Blue Jays. All right.
at that big stadium there, and now I'm relaxing and putting my feet up when my wife runs a vacuum cleaner. What was calling that last game like for you? Was it any different in any way? It was a little bit different because I knew I'd never broadcast another game, and after a long, long time, like 55 years, it had been certainly a part of my life.
But I knew that God had a new adventure for me, and I was ready to look forward to it. Do you like the word retirement?
I don't like the word retirement, though. I think it's a bad word. I don't think I'm really retired because I've got a lot of other things to do. I'm going in another direction, and I put my energies to work in another way, but I'm not really retired. Of course, this time it was your choice to leave the booth. There was a time a few years ago when someone else made that choice for you. Absolutely. That was in December of 1990. The Tigers had
told me that i would work for one more year and then i'd be through and i made the announcement of the press conference and that for the season of ninety one i continued on with the tigers and then after that i was as we play in show business at liberty
And I did the CBS Game of the Week as well as some other things. I worked a little bit for the Angels in California. I wasn't inactive, but I didn't continue as a Tiger announcer at that time. You know, that whole episode is really now a textbook case of how to do public relations because that, I mean, from my perspective, that was messed up pretty badly.
Well, it was a misread, I think, of what the radio and baseball welded together meant to a region. Not so much the announcer as the fact that when somebody comes in and establishes himself as the announcer for four or five years, people get used to them, and an abrupt change is something that they don't like to see. And I just happened to be in the announcer's seat at that time. Hmm.
Well, I think you're very humble in saying that. Baseball is a game that's based on tradition, and I think that extended to the broadcast booth. Let's just run the details real quick for those who don't know. You were unceremoniously dropped as the Tiger baseball announcer.
the uh... the entire state of michigan almost erupted reaction i i lived in chicago and black day we filled you felt reverberations all the way across the lake well you know it's a great example of a roman date twenty eight i think that things do work together for good because uh...
In the long run, just from a secular and career standpoint, I think it was a good thing that it happened. It attracted some attention to me that I might not otherwise have accrued. And it didn't really bother me as much as it did a lot of people. I knew that God was in charge.
I didn't have any feeling of bitterness or acrimony about it, and I knew that things were going to work out good. One of the problems we had at the time was my wife, Lula, had just heard at the same time that she had breast cancer. Mm-hmm.
And we didn't say anything about it because we were in such a critical spot that the people were putting us in the paper all the time and on the air. And we felt like, Lula and I felt like, that if we announced that she had breast cancer, that people would say, well, here's another...
there's another effort for these two folks to try to get a little more public sympathy so nobody even found out about it until the next spring she had to take radiation treatment all up through the next year so you spent one year out of the booth right
That's true. One year out of the Tiger booth, right. And did the ownership change? What brought you back? Well, what brought me back was when Mike Illich bought the team from Tom Monahan, one pizza owner, delivering the team to another pizza owner. Yeah.
In 30 minutes or less, right? He'd bring me back as the voice of the Tigers. So I owe a great deal to Mike Illich, because otherwise I still would have been not doing the Tiger games the rest of my career. But he brought me back and said at that time, he said, you're back on your terms now, and you can stay as long as you want to, and when you feel like leaving, you just let me know, and we'll make the adjustment. Hmm.
Ernie, anyone who knows you knows that you're a very warm and gracious man. And as you said, you didn't get bitter, but at the same time, you're human. You must be carrying around a few feelings about that whole episode. From a business standpoint, I knew that anybody who has been hired has a right to be fired. There's no question there.
And I also just knew that I had to forgive. In God's eyes, I had to seek forgiveness and not carry any bitterness about this and just let it go at that. So that was my attitude. I tried to do that and try to work my way through it. I saw my first major league game in Chicago. I went up to the World's Fair.
In 1934, my uncle, he took me to my first ball game in 1934. It was September, and the Yankees were in town. It was the final game that Babe Ruth played in the American League in Chicago at Old Comiskey Park. Ted Lyons, the Hall of Fame pitcher on the mound for Chicago, and Red Ruffing, the Hall of Fame pitcher for New York.
tied up in a pitcher's duel. Lou Gehrig played first base. Wow. And Lou Gehrig got a couple of triples, a couple of doubles that day that I've never seen happen before. Each time he ducked an inside fastball, the ball ricocheted off his bat over the third baseman's head twice in one game. And Gehrig, of course, was a great player, the iron horse, before Cal Ripken took over that title. And the Babe played the left
field they broke they always played they feel that was not the sunfield and in commiskey the sunfield was right field so they put him in left and he made a great running catch in foul territory that final game that he played in chicago and america late but that wasn't the first time you remember saw or even met babe ruth wasn't well i i met the babe uh... a little bit earlier than that when he signed my shoe that was the title of one of my books the babes signed my shoe
and that happened when i was a kid in atlanta i was about ten years old at that time and or not the pot for the in park one march for the yankees were coming north after spring training and they played my team that ladder crackers which was a team in the southern lake about the night that a guy sneak out of the box seats there at the railing and uh... the babe came in from right field of the yankee dugout and that's before he got to the dugout i yelled at him and said mister ruth mister ruth
Can I have your autograph, please? And he looked at me and he said, Kid, you ain't got anything for me to sign. I was so stupid. I didn't have any piece of paper, scorecard, anything. But I did have a pen. So I said, Well, will you sign my shoe? And I put my tennis shoe over the railing and he signed it with a pen I gave him.
Ernie, you mentioned growing up there in Georgia. That first team was the Atlanta Crackers. We'll talk more about that. But I guess I didn't know until I read this latest book, maybe it just escaped me before, that you had a little speech impediment when you were a boy. Well, I did. I was tongue-tied, and I couldn't say an S or a C-H. A chicken would come out fickened.
And my folks didn't have much money. My dad had multiple sclerosis. And my mom made cakes and sandwiches to support the family. And the Harwell boys got out and sold a lot of things that people didn't want to buy, you know, like Christmas cards and fruitcakes and had a paper route. And we tried to scrape up some money. And my family got enough money to get a send-a-me to what we'd call a speech therapist. And what happened?
annoying that the kids in atlanta in the fifth and sixth grade wall required to uh... make a speech or debate at least once a month but she helped me her name was mrs lackland and it was thought it was thought a crazy because i wrote an article in the uh... guidepost magazine uh... back in the mid nineties about this and
uh... mrs blackman got it copy of the magazine and she wrote me from my down in albany georgia at that time she was about ninety five years old and uh... she sent me a copy of the uh... recital that she still put on with her pupils he was still teaching at that age oh my goodness and believe it or not when they were still reciting the same old poems that i used to
Of course, one of the distinctions you have is you were the only broadcaster ever to be traded for a player. You've got to tell that story to us. Well, that's true. In 1946, I came out of the Marines. I began to do the Atlanta Cracker Games, my old hometown team. And in 1934, Red Barber, the great Brooklyn announcer, was on a trip to Pittsburgh, and he became ill.
They rushed him to the hospital. They didn't know whether he was going to live or die. And his boss, Branch Rickey, got on the phone and called Earl Mann, who owned the Atlanta team, and said, I'd like to have Ernie Harwell come up and replace Red Barber as my announcer.
And Earl said, well, that's fine, Mr. Rickey, but Ernie's under contract to me, and if you really want him, you make a trade. You send me your catcher from Montreal Cliff Dapper, and you can have Ernie. So I was traded for a minor league catcher and got to the big leagues. I went up toward the end of the season, didn't have any spring training, didn't know the players, just broke in absolutely cold. But the people of Brooklyn was great to me. They were very warm and affectionate.
and received me with open arms, and it couldn't have been nicer. Recorded before his death in 2010, with Ernie Harwell, one of baseball's greats, will continue coming up on First Person.
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Let's return now to a program from the archive, the late Ernie Harwell, one of baseball's great announcers. Here's a sidebar question. How do you remember all those details about all those games so long ago? Well, I think the fact that I was there, you know, in person, I didn't read about it. And it was sort of a very significant time in my career. And then the fact that I probably repeat from time to time, and it
gets ingrained in my brain. But you always repeat it accurately, correct? Well, I hope so. It doesn't grow with time? Yeah. Sometimes you're embellished. So you're in Brooklyn with the Dodgers. Red Barber eventually came back then to the booth. And you were number two man, or how did that work out? Well, I was actually number three. Connie Desmond, the fellow that I worked with when Red was out, was number one because he'd been Red's number two announcer.
And then we worked with three guys. And then the next year, 1949, there were three of us.
But we also had TV to do. So we switched around, the three of us, on the radio and TV. Boy, that was early for television, wasn't it? It was. Television had really started about 1947 or 1948. And it was beginning to almost equal with radio about that time. But it was still fairly primitive, almost like doing a radio cast with a couple of cameras around. We didn't have the replay. We didn't have anything. Okay.
But then you did the unthinkable. You crossed over to the Giants. Now remember, those listening younger, that the Dodgers and the Giants were both New York-based teams. Well, that's true, and they hated each other. It was probably the most bitter rival that you could find in any sports. But Leo DeRocha, the manager for the Dodgers, had made that jump across the river that same season, the good bit before I did. So it
uh... he had to build a pathfinder and of course that my wish list insignificant compared to leo because he was a manager and i was just a rookie announcer and i don't think uh... anybody really paid a lot of attention to the fact that i left and went to the giant and what's this about you and we'll get into a fight one time i mean you're such a gentle spirit i can imagine happening well that did happen and uh... uh... we were we were coming back from my chicago on the uh... on the train and
uh... russ hodges and i was sitting in the his compartment in i was reading the paper we finished their breakfast and relaxing and i have to preface my story about the fact that the leo de rocha was a kind of a guy always like to have a stooge and if you allowed him to make you his stooge he would make it for the rest of your career so i tried to keep my distance with leo although we were on pretty good terms and
he came into the compartment i was reading the paper and he thought it's left it back into my face and i didn't know whether he was kidding a serious but i grabbed him and we had a wrestling match it was sort of friendly i guess and we have been popped and finally i think inertia set in the report sat down and that left about it but there was much of a fight it's quite so it didn't uh... dinner your relationship for years after we got along fine i love uh... i love
been around leo he was a very personable charming kind of a guy he'd come into the room he'd charm everybody in it but uh... you never know what was coming back from leo de roger i don't know where to stop asking these stories ernie but when you announced for the giants is that when bobby thompson's home run happened that's right i was on the tv that day october the third nineteen fifty one
And the way my partner was Russ Hodges, and there were five different radio broadcasts, and Russ was going to do one of them. And I sort of felt sorry for poor old Russ. I told him myself he'd get lost on the radio, and I was going to be on TV, NBC TV, coast to coast. It was the first sports series ever telecast coast to coast. That is, you could see it simultaneously on the West Coast and what was happening in New York.
Before that, you had to tape it and send it out there. So I figured I had the better assignment. Well, the Lord works wonders, and it turned out that Russ Hodges' call was recorded. The Giants won the pennant. The Giants won the pennant. Became one of the most famous of all time, and there were no recordings or replays or anything else on TV. And only my wife, Lulu, and I know I was on that afternoon.
Ernie, when did you meet the Lord? 1961, actually. It was in spring training in Cooperstown. I'd grown up in a so-called Christian family. My mom and dad went to Sunday school and church, and we had a feeling that if...
We stayed out of everybody's way, did a few good deeds, we'd get to heaven. I don't think we really realized that we had to surrender to Jesus. I don't think we went that far in those days. The fashion was to sort of keep quiet about your Christianity.
And that was the kind of a Christian I was, sort of a closet Christian. Well, what were the circumstances that caused you to think differently? Well, I was in spring training by myself, and something told me to go over to a Sunday service at an Easter Sunday, as a matter of fact, right outside of Lakeland at Bartow, Florida, conducted by Billy Graham.
And the message that day moved me. And when the invitation came, I walked down the aisle and dedicated my life to Jesus. And I think it had been a slow process. I'd been approaching that for a long, long time. And I finally decided that it took complete surrender. And then that changed my life. It put my priorities in shape.
And God told me, you know, that the most important thing was to follow His precepts and to seek the kingdom of God. It's referred to in Matthew, what is it, 633, I believe. And then also He taught me that my problems would be numerous, but He would be there to help me. And, of course, He gave me that peace that's referred to in Philippians 4-7.
and uh... i think over the years that knowing i'm a setter up all back up short of the glory of god like all of us but i keep trying and i try to walk with him you know i know you know real comfortable talking about this is you like the spotlight on yourself but i i have to tell you that one of the most touching moments of reading your book ernie was when
I think it was ESPN came to record a television interview with you, and you kind of put them on hold to take an important telephone call. Yeah, that was a very strange thing. Warner for sale came out to do a story for ESPN, and he and the photographer were seated with me at the kitchen table. The phone rang.
and it was a nurse and she said that i've got a young man here that uh... if i could about committing suicide and uh... at any age talked about you and i said why don't you call him so we're getting in touch with you and and could you speak with him and i got on the phone and uh... at the first question he asked me something about the travel was traveled better than where the curse of the like that but
uh... you it was really uh... get ready to take his own life because he was so down and depressed about everything in here he is asking the baseball question and i told a lot of that that this shows you the power of baseball you know he's a guy that you at the crisis of his life any he's arguing about uh... the ability of a couple of all players
But he did not commit suicide, and I think things worked out okay for him. Yeah, I remember reading in your book of your expression to him that even when it seems like nobody cares, the Lord is the one who does care. Yeah, I know him. God loved him, and no matter what happened, remember that.
you mention your involved with baseball chapels actually i think you were instrumental in starting baseball chapels weren't you well i was one of the beginning of the product started by accident i don't think anybody started the the agenda to stop it was that uh... in uh... in chicago and minnesota some of the players uh... almost two teams began to uh... ask a speaker to come in and uh... talk about tell they bring their wives in and they'd have some orange juice and coffee and
maybe four or five players would gather and somebody would come in from the outskirts and would uh... make a speech and you know make a little of presentation a christian presentation and then the watch poster of sports right into tried got interested in the detroit area and
he and i began the same thing in detroit and that i suggested that uh... i thought it would be better uh... if the players could have their chapel at the ballpark because sunday is always a getaway day most of the time in the major leagues and the players are very concerned about getting packed up
getting checked out of the hotel, getting breakfast, getting on the bus. Well, didn't Mickey Mantle and someone else get mobbed at a church one time or something? Well, they did one time, yeah. That's another reason that they had to... It got to be some of the superstars would go to church and they had no privacy at all. People would ask for autographs and...
So it was a lot easier just to take the chapel out to the ballpark where the players could be in their own environment and sit around, you know, halfway dressed or in uniforms or whatever and listen to the speaker. And that's what eventually evolved. And then Waddy went to the commissioner and got some...
official sanction of the baseball chapel process some donations from baseball i think that helped a little bit so now it's been that permeated all the other sports at them a football and auto racing and uh... everything else so it's it's a great moment and i've seen a lot of the young man who i thought they could reach fulfillment
with the payment money at through baseball uh... become christians and that change their lives completely and through the baseball chapel not just young men how about the story of mickey mantel the end of his life while mickey mantel at the end of his life yeah finally gave his uh... uh... life to cry something bobby richardson called on him in the final day he turned his life over to jesus and uh... and i died of it born again christian great story
Our guest has written several books, including Ernie Harwell, My 60 Years in Baseball, where he tells even more of these great stories surrounding baseball. We'll place a link to the book at FirstPersonInterview.com. You can also listen again or share it with a friend at FirstPersonInterview.com or use our free smartphone app. And this program is also released as a podcast. Just search any podcast app for First Person with Wayne Shepard.
A word of thanks to the Far East Broadcasting Company for making First Person possible. FEBC is committed to taking Christ to the world through radio and new avenues of media, and they have a long track record of success in reaching a large part of the world. Learn more by listening to the podcast until all have heard on many podcast apps or at febc.org. Now, with thanks to my friend and producer, Joe Carlson, I'm Wayne Shepard. Thanks for listening to First Person.