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CANADA TO HONOUR ERNIE HARWELLSt. Marys – Detroit Tigers broadcasting legend Ernie Harwell will be honoured with the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum’s prestigious Jack Graney Award, presented to a representative of the media who has made a significant contribution to the game of baseball through their life’s work. It is not necessarily presented annually. This season marks the 84-year-old icon’s 55th major league season.With the exception of 1992, the Hall of Fame broadcaster has been the radio voice of the Detroit Tigers since 1960. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians, mainly in Ontario, count themselves among the privileged listeners whose passion for baseball has been fueled by Ernie Harwell”, said Tom Valcke, CBHFM President & CEO.“It is fitting that we honour him in this, his final year in broadcasting. Also, Canada will have the good fortune of hosting the last regular season game that Ernie will ever call, when the Tigers complete their schedule at SkyDome (Sept. 29). ” "I am genuinely touched that my friends in Canada would bestow this honour upon me, a kid from Georgia", said Harwell upon hearing the news. "Jack Graney was a pioneer in the field of broadcasting, and he played a major role in the evolution of the game as we know it today. " Graney, born in St. Thomas, Ontario, had a career of "firsts". He became the first former player to broadcast a baseball game on radio. The well-known media personality broadcast Cleveland Indians' games from 1932 to 1953. Also, he was the first major league batter to face Babe Ruth (1914), and he was the first player to bat wearing a number on his uniform (1916). He was inducted in to the CBHFM in 1984. Past Jack Graney Award recipients include: Prior to his tenure with the Tigers, Harwell called games for the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, and Baltimore Orioles. Among his career highlights are broadcasting Willie Mays first game, Bill Mazeroski’s “shot heard around the world” in 1960, and calling game seven of the 1968 World Series. For Harwell that season remains the most significant. He recalled: "The greatest single moment I've ever known in Detroit was Jim Northrup's triple in the seventh game of the World Series in St. Louis. It was a stunning moment because not only were the Tigers winning a world championship that meant so much to an entire city, they were beating the best pitcher I ever saw – Bob Gibson." Over the years, Harwell has become known for his unique, folksy style of broadcasting – inventing such memorable phrases as “long gone” (signifying a homerun) and “he stood there like a house by the side of the road” (after a called third strike). Harwell's articulate, melodious Georgia drawl has been described as "a smooth ride on the river of baseball's heritage." Ironically, the man whose voice would become the best loved in Detroit was so tongue-tied as a youngster that schoolmates ridiculed him. His parents hired speech teachers and he struggled through school classes and school debates. But by the time he graduated from Emory University, he had overcome his handicap. Harwell heard his first baseball broadcast in 1926 at the age of 8. His parents had bought him a crystal set. He sat in the basement and listened to Grover Cleveland Alexander of the St. Louis Cardinals strike out Tony Lazzeri of the New York Yankees with the bases loaded in the seventh game of the World Series. "You had to hold a piece of wire. They called it a 'cat whisker' in a small pool of mercury and you had to hold it just right for the station to come in," Harwell would describe years later. "I sat there for two hours, not moving a muscle, listening to every pitch." In 1943, Harwell began doing play-by-play for the minor league Atlanta Crackers. In his book, "Tuned to Baseball," he recalls being paid $25 a game plus an unusual perk. Each time a Crackers player hit a home run, he got a case of Wheaties cereal from the team's sponsor. Harwell has another unique distinction, becoming the only broadcaster ever traded for a player when the Crackers swapped him for Cliff Draper, a Brooklyn Dodgers farmhand. He joined the Dodgers broadcast team in the 1948 season, one year after Jackie Robinson broke baseball's colour barrier. Ernie Harwell will be officially presented with the CBHFM's Jack Graney Award at 5:00pm on Saturday, June 1, on-field at Detroit's Comerica Park, prior to the Blue Jays game against the Tigers that evening. There will be a follow-up presentation at SkyDome in the season's final game on Sept.29, details to be announced later this summer. MARK YOUR CALENDAR: The CBHFM's 2002 Induction Ceremony in St. Marys Ontario, commences at 11:00am on Saturday, June 22 (Media Conference at 9:00am -- all one-on-ones must be conducted prior to the ceremony). Inductees include Paul Beeston, Cito Gaston, Don McDougall, Dave Shury, Harry Simmons and Bill Slack. For more information, please call 519-284-1838 or email baseball@baseballhalloffame.ca Fri., June 21 >> 6th Annual Celebrity Golf Classic Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum St. Marys – May 20, 2002 |
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