Len Kasper and Ernie Harwell
I called Ernie last week and he was more than happy to get together to talk some baseball and broadcasting and go down memory lane. At 91, he's in great shape physically and sounds like he could jump right back into the booth without missing a beat.
He and his lovely wife, Lulu, welcomed us into their home after we had lunch and Ernie told stories about his career, asked us questions about our routines and how we do things these days and at the end of our meeting said, "Thanks guys, I learned a lot."
I was struck by several things he talked about, but here are a couple I thought you would find most interesting:
Judd Sirott and Ernie Harwell
2) He's often asked by broadcasters today how he would handle games that didn't really matter in the standings or games that were blowouts and his answer was this--it's like playing golf. You may hit a good shot and then a bad shot, but your goal on every shot (or in a baseball broadcast, every play) is to do your best on that particular shot/play.
So, he would just play a game with himself--can I call this play better than the last one. He was constantly challenging himself to do the best he could on every play. Great stuff. You see why he is revered as one of the best play-by-play broadcasters of all-time.
1 Comment
noakley said:
Thank you Len.
In my 40's having grown up listening to Ernie, falling asleep on warm summer nights frequently bring back memories of his voice in my left ear. With some decent teams and some awful, Ernie always made it interesting.
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