Osler's Razor

Summer days in Michigan were spent outdoors. Where I lived, first on the east side of Detroit and then in Grosse Pointe, it seemed like you could always hear a radio-- there was a soundtrack to summer. Music, sure; Motown and jazz and blues and rock ranging from the Canadian powerhouse CKLW to the eccentric WABX. In that soundtrack though, somewhere in the background, was always Ernie Harwell calling the Tigers game. It was his voice that took us through the good years and the bad, and told us every day a new story about baseball, often involving characters too strange for fiction.

For me, his voice most often flowed out of a radio my dad had propped up in the back yard as he worked on some recalcitrant machine or created a painting. I might sit out there and read, or pull weeds at my mother's direction, but Ernie Harwell was always there.

I think I learned some things from him, too. As a public speaker, he was distinct and real and engaging, and all (well, most) of the following were worth learning:

1) He was comfortable with silence. There were parts of the game when not much was happening-- baseball is like that. Perhaps the pitcher and catcher were conferring on the mound, or a batter stepped out of the box. Harwell did not feel compelled to fill that silence. Rather, for a few moments we just heard the sound of the vendors and the crowd, maybe a plane flying over... or nothing at all. It was comforting, really, and we all knew that the conference at the mound would end or the batter would step back into the box, and we would hear that voice again, telling us about what happened the last time this batter had been to the plate.

2) He cared, with dignity. Ernie Harwell was never one of those announcers who worked himself into a love-frenzy for his team's success, repeating some catch-phrase until he was out of breath. We knew he loved the Tigers; we all did. He would compliment the team, express hope or sadness, and it all seemed genuine because it was.

3) He just made stuff up. When he announced a game, Ernie Harwell made stuff up. It wasn't a lie, really, because we were all in on it-- we knew he was making it up. Most regularly, for example, when a ball would go into the stands he would tell us the hometown of the person who caught the ball: "And a young man visiting from Grand Blanc snagged that one!" There was no way he knew that, but we loved to hear him say it. Even though it wasn't true, his saying it made it true-- that kid drove down from Grand Blanc with his dad, probably, all the way to downtown Detroit, parked on someone's lawn, bought peanuts from the fat guy by Nemo's bar, and walked into Tiger Stadium on a hot July day, the broad green field stretching out like a magic carpet beyond the rusting pillars and gray concrete, and there was that kid's hero, Willie Horton, warming up.

Yeah, that kid wasn't actually from Grand Blanc, but Ernie Harwell made baseball something more than just baseball, which is what it is to those who love it-- baseball is a city and a time and a kid from Grand Blanc stretching out his glove to catch a ball from the bat of Willie Horton, his hero, the best day of his life, and still we were all there, listening, hearing, knowing what was truer than true.