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William Earnest Harwell (January 25, 1918 – May 4, 2010) was an American sportscaster, known for his long career calling play-by-play of Major League Baseball games. For 55 seasons, 42 of them with the Detroit Tigers, Harwell broadcast the action on radio and/or television. In January 2009, the American Sportscasters Association ranked him 16th on its list of Top 50 Sportscasters of All Time.
Harwell attended Emory University, where he was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and helped edit The Emory Wheel. After graduating, Harwell worked as a Copy editing and Sportswriting for The Atlanta Constitution. In 1943, he began announcing games for the Crackers on WSB radio, after which he served four years in the United States Marine Corps. Harwell would leave the service in January 1946 as a sergeant. During his enlistment he was stationed in Camp Lejeune as a writer for The Globe, and later in Washington, D.C. as a writer for Leatherneck.
He was acquired by the Dodgers in 1948 after general manager Branch Rickey arranged an unprecedented deal: Brooklyn traded catcher Cliff Dapper to the Atlanta Crackers in exchange for Harwell’s release from his broadcasting contract. It remains the only known instance in Major League Baseball history of a player being traded for a broadcaster.
Harwell broadcast for the Dodgers through 1949, the New York Giants from 1950 to 1953, and the Baltimore Orioles from 1954 to 1959. Harwell was the lead broadcaster on Orioles broadcasts on WCBM-AM and WMAR-TV in 1955, working alongside Chuck Thompson. The next year Thompson moved on to Washington D.C. to broadcast the Senator games until returning to the Orioles in 1962. Early in Harwell's career, he also broadcast The Masters golf tournament, as well as pro and college football.
Harwell shared TV and radio duties with Kell through 1963, then with Bob Scheffing in 1964. He began working radio exclusively in 1965, teaming with Gene Osborn for two seasons and then with Ray Lane from 1967 to 1972. Paul Carey replaced Lane in 1973, joining Harwell to form the Tigers' best-known and longest-lasting radio team, which lasted until the end of the 1991 season. Harwell gained a large following outside of Detroit because the Tigers aired their games on WJR, a 50,000-watt station that reached most of the eastern half of North America at night. On December 19, 1990, the Tigers and WJR announced that the station wanted to go in a "new direction" and that the 1991 season would be Harwell's last, as his contract was "non-renewed". Carey then announced that he had already planned to retire after the 1991 season and that the decision was unrelated to Harwell's contract situation. Fans across Michigan and throughout the baseball world were outraged, but the ballclub and the radio station (who eventually wound up blaming each other for the decision) stood firm: "Harwell's not going to change no matter how much clamor is made over it," said team president Bo Schembechler. The situation caused outrage so much that some made threats of violence against Schembechler. Some, such as Mitch Albom, blamed the situation for causing as much negative feeling as it did on WJR executive Jim Long who was the one who pushed the quick, no severance pay removal of Harwell. The movement in favor of keeping Harwell was so strong that even billboards in favor of his remaining were put up. Rick Rizzs was hired away from the Seattle Mariners to replace Harwell in 1992, teaming with Bob Rathbun.
Harwell worked a part-time schedule for the California Angels in 1992. The following year, the Tigers were purchased by Mike Ilitch, who made it one of his priorities to bring Harwell back. In 1993 Harwell teamed with Rizzs and Rathbun on the WJR broadcasts, calling play-by-play of the middle innings in each game. From 1994 to 1998, Harwell called television broadcasts for the Tigers on PASS Sports, WKBD-TV, and later Fox Sports Detroit (now FanDuel Sports Network Detroit) for select broadcasts. In 1999, he resumed full-time radio duties with the team, swapping roles with Frank Beckmann (who had replaced Rizzs in the radio booth following the 1994 season), teaming with analyst Jim Price, and continuing in that role even as the team's radio rights changed from WJR to WXYT in 2001. During spring training in 2002, he announced that he would retire at the end of the season; his final broadcast came on September 29, 2002. Dan Dickerson, who had joined Harwell and Price in 2000, took over as the Tigers' lead radio voice the following year.
Harwell helped broadcast two All-Star Games (, ) and two World Series (1963, 1968) for NBC Radio, numerous ALCS and ALDS for CBS Radio and ESPN Radio, and the CBS Radio Game of the Week from 1992 to 1997. He also called the 1984 World Series locally for the Tigers and WJR. For CBS TV's coverage of the 1991 World Series, Harwell narrated an opening prologue prior to Game 1 and a closing epilogue (an excerpt from A. Bartlett Giamatti's "The Green Fields of the Mind") after Game 7.
Harwell served as a guest color commentator for two Tiger games on FSN Detroit on May 24 and 25, 2007. Harwell worked the telecasts (alongside play-by-play man Mario Impemba) as a substitute for regular analyst Rod Allen, who took the games off to attend his son's high school graduation. (Harwell had filled in for Allen once before, on a 2003 telecast.)
He also appeared as a guest on an ESPN Sunday Night Baseball telecast in Detroit on July 1, 2007.
Harwell occasionally did vignettes on the history of baseball for Fox Sports Detroit's magazine program Tigers Weekly.
Harwell would also begin the first spring training broadcast of each season with a reading from Song of Solomon 2:11-12 (KJV): "For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."A 1993 rendition of Harwell's Song of Solomon reading can be heard at "Listen to Ernie Harwell's 'The Voice of the Turtle,'", Detroit Free Press sports blog, posted 25 February 2009.
Harwell also wrote popular music. His first recorded song was "Upside Down" on the Something Stupid album by Homer and Jethro in the mid-1960s. In the liner notes of the album, it says: "Detroit Tiger baseball announcer wrote this one, and we think it's a fine observation of the world today, as seen from the press box at Tiger Stadium. We were up there with Ernie one day and from there the world looks upside down. The Mets were on top in the National League." All told, 66 songs written by Ernie Harwell have been recorded by various artists. "Needless to say, I have more no-hitters than Nolan Ryan." – Ernie Harwell in an article published May 31, 2005, in the Detroit Free Press
Harwell made a cameo appearance in the 1994 film Cobb and in the made-for-television movies Aunt Mary (1979), Tiger Town (1983), and Cooperstown (1993). His voice can be briefly heard in the films Paper Lion (1968) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and in the TV movie The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2004). Harwell appeared as an interview subject in the 1998 documentary film The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg and contributed to numerous other baseball-themed documentaries and retrospectives over the years.
The 1997 text-based computer simulation game APBA for Windows: Broadcast Blast features play-by-play commentary by Harwell.
Harwell served as a spokesman for Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Michigan. His contract with the organization, which began in 2003, ran for ten years with an option for another ten. Had Harwell fulfilled the entire contract (by which time he would have been 95 years old), Blue Cross had pledged to extend it for yet another decade. Harwell formerly ran a blog about healthy living and fitness for BCBS. He retired from it on March 5, 2009.
A devout Christians (he was born again at a 1961 Billy Graham crusade), Harwell was long involved with Baseball Chapel, an evangelism organization for professional ballplayers.
In 2004, the Detroit Public Library dedicated a room to Ernie Harwell and his wife, Lulu, which will house Harwell's collection of baseball memorabilia valued at over two million dollars.
On April 26, 2008, Harwell was presented with an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from The University of Michigan at their Spring Commencement ceremony. One week later, on May 3, 2008, he was presented with another Honorary Degree of Laws this time from Wayne State University.
In late 2008, Harwell began to appear in television public service announcements for the Michigan Association of Broadcasters, advising viewers about the Digital television transition in the United States.
Harwell was a member of the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy Board, an organization that attempted to save portions of Tiger Stadium. He offered to donate a large portion of his historic collection of baseball memorabilia, which he had collected over the course of his storied career, if part of Tiger Stadium could have been saved for a museum.
Harwell lived in Farmington Hills, Michigan, and moved to Novi in the late 1990s, where he lived until his death. Up until just before his death, he still exercised regularly, did sit-ups, used a treadmill, and lifted weights.
In addition to professional accolades, Harwell’s cultural impact was commemorated in Detroit with a life-sized bronze statue outside Comerica Park, unveiled in 2011. His voice has also been sampled in local music and frequently cited in retrospectives on the city’s sports history.
This project is an outreach effort that built a baseball stadium in recognition of Ernie and his wife of 62 years, Lula "Lulu" Harwell. Harwell Field has grandstands, press box, team clubhouse and a foyer to recognize the achievements and contributions of the Harwells.
Harwell sat down for a 60-minute interview on an episode of MLB Network's Studio 42 with Bob Costas, his final television appearance. The episode premiered November 17, 2009. In the interview, Costas correctly foresaw the 2009 World Series would unfortunately be Harwell's last.
Harwell died on May 4, 2010, at his home in Novi, Michigan, surrounded by his wife of 68 years, Lulu, and three of their four children.
He was set to receive the Vin Scully Lifetime Achievement Award in Sports Broadcasting on May 5 in New York City. Harwell considered Scully to be the best broadcaster of all time. However, in accepting the award on Harwell's behalf, Al Kaline noted "We Tiger fans respectfully disagree."
Harwell lay in repose at Comerica Park on May 6. Over 10,000 fans filed past the open casket. May 10 was declared Ernie Harwell Day at Comerica Park. Several players and broadcasters hoisted a flag in center field bearing his initials, similar to the ones that were also sewn onto all Tigers uniforms. Harwell's longtime broadcasting partner Paul Carey threw out the ceremonial first pitch that night.
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