Ernie Harwell

A bit of my childhood is gone. Longtime Detroit Tigers personality Ernie Harwell passed away yesterday. My dad and I would spend hours in our garage tucked away in the woods outside Ypsilanti, listening to Harwell call Tiger games with sidekick Paul Carey. Those times with my dad are some of my fondest memories of being a boy. Ernie, you will be missed. Thanks for so many great games.







 Hear the Detroit Tigers WJR theme music here:



Detroit Tigers march - Instrumental Version



Detroit Tigers march - featuring Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey



Note: More memories of Tiger baseball and Harwell are posted earlier in this blog.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Detroit Tigers

Image
A huge part of my boyhood in Michigan was the Detroit Tigers. I think it was impossible for them not to be. I don't remember the Tigers ever having spectacular seasons when I was young. In the 1970s, especially the late 70s, they seemed to be in a constant battle for fourth or fifth place with the Cleveland Indians. But who cared? I lived and breathed the game. The best games to listen to were the night games. I'd hang out with my dad in our garage, the sounds of evening filling the air. WJR 760AM would be on our little portable radio. And then, it would cut through on the speaker: "Detroit Tiger baseball is on the air!" — a mighty roar — and then the familiar march. Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey. Legendary voices calling the plays. Harwell would call the first and last three innings, the baritone of Paul Carey in the middle. The names of the players are still with me. Guys like Alan Trammell. "Sweet Lou" Whittaker. John Wockenfuss (I'll never forget his...
Read more

Paddle-to-the-Sea

Image
I attended a very small elementary school in Milan, Michigan in the 1970s. George Allan Elementary was grades 1-5 with only one class of each. Our class composition changed very little during those years, so we all grew to be quite close. As the weather would grow warmer during the late winter/early spring months, our entire school (fewer than 100 students) would spend a morning watching a classic short filmstrip — Paddle-to-the-Sea, which was based on the Caldecott-award story by Holling C. Holling. We did this every year, from first grade through fifth. Watching Paddle-to-the-Sea was sort of a Michigan tradition that I'm sure a lot of you who spent their young years in the Great Lake State in the 1970s will remember. And, yes, it was a filmstrip. Garbled audio. Big projector screen. That's dating myself. I can still remember the little Indian boy painting the canoe he had carved by firelight, and setting it on top of a cliff, ready to travel the journey through the Great Lake...
Read more