There was a time prior to FM radio, the Internet and cable TV, where an AM radio was a magic toy.  Just by spinning the dial slowly, you could pick up stations on the skywave from all over the country.  Growing up in Chicago, I remember first hearing Jack Buck in St. Louis on KMOX, Herb Carneal on WCCO in Minneapolis, Bob Ucker on WTMJ in Milwaukee and of course Ernie Harwell on WJR in Detroit.

Ernie Harwell was a rare human being.  He was a Renaissance man who was as comfortable discussing art, music and poetry as he was home runs and ERAs.  His style was laid back, sort of Vin Scully with a Southern twang.  And he drew those word pictures that announcers of his era that were raised on radio knew how to draw.

With his death, there are only two announcers that I can think of that are refugees from the golden era of baseball on radio. One is Scully who is still behind the microphone for the Dodgers, albeit on a part-time basis.  The other is Milo Hamilton, employed by the Houston Astros.  These are men who started their career in the fifties when Mel Allen, Red Barber, Jack Brickhouse, Harry Caray and others were on the air.  Today's crop of young announcers, raised on TV, couldn't touch these hall of famers with a ten foot pole.  There are a few exceptions (the Cardinals John Rooney, the Cubs Pat Hughes, the retired Pete Van Wieren), but with Ernie Harwell's passing, another hall of famer leaves us.  Although he was off the air for eight years, he still came back every once in a while and did a couple innings here and there and was especially engaging when he was in the visiting team's broadcast booth.

They are almost all gone now.  We'l have the tapes, the keno scopes and whatever, but unless you've sat there at night with a transistor radio under your pillow listening to these guys do a live game, you'll never appreciate how very good they were.

Goodbye and God Bless, Ernie.  If there's a baseball heaven, you know they have a hell of a broadcast team.

Ernie Harwell's last call/Ernie Harwell Day