Tiger Fans Get Early Lump of Coal

Ernie Harwell’s eye doctor saw red. He called from an infirmary in Boston, just to let me know that his patient can definitely call ‘em the way he sees ‘em--and more significantly, still see ‘em the way he calls ‘em--because “Ernie still has the vision of a 30-year-old man.”

This was just before the doctor rattled off a letter to Ronald Reagan, former President of the United States, to ask his intervention in the Detroit Tigers’ out-to-pasturing of Hall of Fame baseball announcer Ernie Harwell, a month before his 73rd birthday.

“Mr. President, I’m sure that you’re sympathetic with Ernie’s situation on several counts,” wrote Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito, associate professor of ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School. “First of all, you, too, were a baseball broadcaster. Secondly, you showed the world that age was no impediment to vigorous leadership.”

The good doctor remembered that Reagan once invited Harwell into the Oval Office for 10 or 15 minutes, just to swap baseball war stories. He suggested that the President give Ernie a ring in time for Christmas--and, oh, yeah: “You might also give Bo Schembechler, president of the Tigers, a call as well.”

Bet he gets a busy signal.

Detroit baseball lovers are beside themselves with righteous indignation at the news, revealed Wednesday by Harwell, that he has been asked to step aside after the 1991 season, after 31 years as the warm and reassuring voice of the Tigers.

A kid named Vin Scully replaced Harwell as announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1950 when Harwell switched to the New York Giants. Harwell later did the Baltimore Orioles’ play-by-play when the franchise was born in 1954, and has been with Detroit since 1960. In 43 years behind mikes, Harwell has missed two games, on neither occasion because of illness.

To those of us lucky enough to know him, Ernie Harwell is a kindly country doctor pulling up in a horse-drawn buggy. His homespun descriptions of Tiger baseball waft through a room like a cool breeze, barely disturbing the drapes. A perfect gentleman? A lovely man? Ernie Harwell is Mother Teresa’s computer date.

Among the thousands of cries of protest came one from the owner of the nation’s single-largest Domino’s pizza franchise, who threatened to pull all advertising from Tiger radio broadcasts until the Harwell decision is reversed. This was in direct defiance of Tom Monaghan, founder and chairman of the Domino’s pizza chain, who is the owner of the Tigers.

Domino’s sales have dropped dramatically in the Detroit area since Harwell held a news conference to explain his enforced retirement.

Hockey fans at Joe Louis Arena chanted, “We want Ernie! We want Ernie!” throughout that evening’s game. Top-rated news anchorman Bill Bonds editorialized: “I have never heard such white-hot anger from so many people, from lawyers to hookers, from ex-cons to nuns.”

Members of the Tiger Stadium Fan Club, who already had been fighting on behalf of one sacred Detroit baseball relic, now are proposing a possible boycott of the 1991 home opener. A television poll lasting 7 1/2 hours drew more than 10,000 callers, 97% wishing to say, “No to Bo.” In Ann Arbor, a service station, Victory Lane Quick Oil Change, posted a billboard beside the highway: “Honk For Harwell!” Horns kept tooting for hours.

There is a growing perception of Monaghan and Schembechler as a meddling Ann Arbor cabal, intent upon furthering their own interests at the expense of loyalty and tradition. First came word that Tiger management preferred to condemn Tiger Stadium and rebuild at a suburban locale, possibly Dearborn. Then, this.

Schembechler, in the eyes of the outraged Dr. Puliafito, is now “the Grinch who stole Christmas.”

This is the same Schembechler, remember, who, as athletic director of the University of Michigan, refused to permit Bill Frieder to coach in the 1989 NCAA national basketball tournament because Frieder already had accepted another job, then allowed himself to coach Michigan in the Rose Bowl before leaving the university to become president of the Tigers.

This is the same Schembechler who prides himself on loyalty, who banished Frieder because: “I want a Michigan man to coach Michigan.” Yet it was Frieder, not Schembechler, who was an alumnus of Michigan, and Schembechler conveniently overlooked the fact that he left his own alma mater, Miami of Ohio, to coach somewhere else.

Harwell said he asked Schembechler to wait until after the 1991 season, then discuss retirement. He said he was asked to announce during next month’s Tiger promotional tour that he was voluntarily stepping down. Calling a news conference to set the record straight, Harwell so moved those present that his longtime partner in the radio booth, Paul Carey, 63, said that he, too, would retire.

“I wanted to work more years,” Harwell said. “The station and the ballclub told me they didn’t want me.”

At one juncture, Harwell mentioned a suggestion that his vision was not what it used to be.

“That’s why I’m calling,” Dr. Puliafito said. “Just to personally let you know that not only does Ernie have the eyes of a 30-year-old man, but the enthusiasm of one, as well.”

Bumper stickers have cropped up all over Michigan reading: “Bo Doesn’t Know Ernie.”

What Schembechler and Monaghan know about baseball, I don’t know.

But sometimes their minds have something in common with baseball. They’re both filled with cork.