The Sad Bear

January 22, 2008

He stood there like the house by the side of the road and watched it go by....another Ti-guh strikeout!"

Ernie Harwell, the classic (he retired in 2002) voice of the Tigers, turns 90 today. I checked the Freep site tonight and saw the his picture on the front page and freaked out, thinking maybe he had died. But no. It's just his birthday. If there's one reason to read the Free Press instead of the News, I'd say his every-two-weekly-ish columns are it. I can't find any archived on the web so you'll just have to take my word for it and wait until baseball season (or read the collection of them my dad gave me for Christmas)

To tell a semi-personal story, the same guy that essentially screwed my dad's old college to the ground, (Tom Monaghan, a.k.a. Mr. Domino's Pizza) also tried to fire Ernie Harwell in the early 90s when he owned the Tigers. Actually, more like did fire him. For two years.

This just confirms his status as high up there on the douchebag list.

PS I spent the entire evening, from about 7 - 12, watching You Tube videos of classic Pistons - Bulls games. While this probably wasn't the wisest of moves, I did find this. Notice how the Pistons used "The Final Countdown" as their intro music when it was brand motherfucking new - in other words, un-ironically (Christ almighty, I didn't think that was possible...). Also notice how much of a nerd Bill Laimbeer looks next to Isiah, Rodman, and Joe D. Finally, notice how the warm-up jerseys have the players' first names on them. Sort of a neat little ode to the whole "Detroit-working-class-average-Joe" thing. The point here is to say that, man, the NBA was so sweet back in the day...

Well, now...I'm starting feel a bit like Evan Moran and should probably take a shower to atone for the night's sin of wasting away on YouTube.

Labels: Detroit, journalism, sports

by JHitts at 3:07 AM |