Ernie Harwell, Hall of Fame Detroit Tigers broadcaster, dead at 92

The voices of the game of baseball are often the audible history of the game. A call, a moment, a memory. All tied up in the tones that became familiar to generations of fans accustomed to following their teams on the radio and TV.

And, without hyperbole or hype, there have been few of those voices more integral, more loved and respected than the great Ernie Harwell.

Through his four decades with the Detroit Tigers, players came and went, teams rose and fell, but there was always Ernie to share the game – and a quirky catchphrase or two – with the people of Michigan.

And now that voice, one of the few that truly transcends a sport in an age of homogeneous broadcasting names, is gone.

Ernie Harwell is dead at 92 after a battle with cancer.

Many words will be spilled and emotions near the surface for legions of baseball fans in the coming days as the great broadcaster is eulogized in Tiger Nation and beyond. But in the end, the sad truth is that baseball is yet another treasure lost from the glory days. With Harry Caray passing in 1998, the Philadelphia Phillies Harry Kallas last year and now Harwell, Vin Scully stands alone as the last of the great voices of the game.

While Harwell’s career stretched into the ’40s and included numerous assignments, including famously his near-brush as the NBC TV broadcaster at the Giants-Dodgers “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” playoff game, he will forever be a Tiger.

Baseball survives even its biggest losses. But the gentle, iconic Harwell, even after living in retirement for the past few years, will leave a gap in the game not soon filled.

Perhaps the most fitting way to pay tribute is to let Harwell say farewell in his own words from his final Tigers broadcast, but just as poetic now as then: