As published in the Belleville Intelligencer
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Posted By CHRIS MALETTE
"The man who will forever be the voice of the Tigers is gone, and the baseball community is left silent in remembrance. Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell passed away Tuesday at age 92. Harwell spent 42 seasons broadcasting in Detroit ..."
— News item, Detroit Free Press, May 4
To have grown up a kid in Windsor and having the old man take you to Tiger Stadium on a muggy, July afternoon to catch the Detroit Tigers in action knowing that night your team had a baseball game in a league in Windsor -- real baseball with baseballs, not fat softballs, like the breed played here -- it was baseball Nirvana.
Maybe it was the proximity to the U.S. What with it all being Amurrica's national game, but for my brothers and me, Tiger Stadium, the Tigers and Ernie Harwell were like church icons.
Even if you weren't at glorious, grungy Tiger Stadium at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull, through Harwell kids in Windsor and Detroit recognized double plays as "two for the price of one," and home runs as "looong gone!" Probably no one has ever coined a phrase like this for a batter who watches a called third strike sail by, his bat still on his shoulder: "He stood there like a house by the side of the road."
Accolades poured in from all over North America for Harwell, including this from the Detroit Free Press columnist and author -- one of my all-time favourite writers -- MitchAlbom:
"Over time, Ernie's voice became the sound-track of our internal pictures, until the game became a story -- a story told by a fatherly figure. I once said if baseball could talk, it would sound like Ernie Harwell -- unhurried, slightly southern, as comfortable as an old couch."
They don't make `em like Ernie Harwell, any more. Everyone's talking about "jack city" for homers and trying way too hard to come up with a catch phrase. For Harwell, it just came naturally and there was always something just so Tigers about everything he said into that mic.
As a kid in Windsor, when the 'Tigs' took that amazing World Series in 1968 against the Cards -- with guys like Lolich, Mclain and Willie Horton -- we listened to the broadcasts in the afternoon and it was Harwell who brought the magic home to a bunch of kids in Grade 7 through his game-calling mastery.
He was one for the ages.
Seeing as today's column seems to have veered into Malette's Faves, here's my favourite charity, or certainly one of the top 10.
Sleeping Children Around the World (SCAW), a Canadian international charity dedicated to providing bedkits (bedding, clothing, school supplies and mosquito nets) to children living in underdeveloped countries, celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2010.
Since its inception in 1970 by Murray and Margaret Dryden, SCAW has raised more than $23 million, providing bedkits to more than one million children in 33 countries.
I met Murray Dryden when he gave a presentation at Bridge Street United Church some years ago. I was immediately impressed with the top-to-bottom volunteer nature of SCAW and the fact every nickel actually goes to the kids it purports to help.
Murray Dryden was a prince of a man and his charity struck a chord with me, having seen children sleeping in dirt and squalor in places like Somalia, Haiti, Honduras and post-war Bosnia.
For every $35 bedkit donation, 100 per cent reaches a needy child. To personalize the donation, a photo of the child with their bedkit is sent to the donor. Take it from me, this is a good, honest charity.
For more information on SCAW, visit www.scaw.org.
