His Career Handed to Him on a Plate

Detroit Tiger fans said farewell to Ernie Harwell, who called his final home game Sunday after 42 seasons with the club and 55 seasons as a major league announcer.

An announced crowd of 23,930 in Detroit cheered Harwell and chanted, “Ernie! Ernie! Ernie!” during the seventh-inning stretch. After the game, Tiger officials dug up home plate and presented it to Harwell.

The team also announced it was naming the press box at Comerica Park, “The Ernie Harwell Media Center.”

Harwell was touched, and appreciative, but wondered what the fuss was all about.

“I’m overwhelmed by all of the attention,” he said. “I always looked at myself as just a worker and it’s hard for me to comprehend all of the attention.”

Trivia time: The Boston Red Sox and the Seattle Mariners are about to become the second and third American League teams to win 90 games and fail to advance to the playoffs since the current wild-card format was adopted in 1995. Name the first team. Hint: It’s not the Angels.

Numbers game: Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle on Texas Ranger shortstop Alex Rodriguez: “A-Rod has MVP numbers this year, Hall of Fame numbers, but all the homers and RBIs are parlor tricks, cute diversions to be forgotten immediately once real baseball begins in October.

“A-Rod should be the P-rod, the plutonium rod that fuels the reactor core with his marvelous baseball skills.

“But, the power plant with which Rodriguez is affiliated has too many Homer Simpsons. So instead, A-Rod is an L-rod, a lightning rod for abuse from those who see him as a symbol of baseball’s wretched excess.”

More A-Rod: “To me, the MVP is the guy who had the best year,” Seattle Manager Lou Piniella said. “His numbers are just better. If the numbers are close, then I’d vote for the guy who plays for the best team. I think the media makes too much of the fact of a guy on a winning team.”

Gone fishin’: With the Red Sox out of playoff contention, Pedro Martinez said he’s content to call it a season after winning his 20th game Sunday.

“I’m done,” he said. “Right now, I’m done, I’m done, I’m done. I haven’t had a vacation in two years. Unless we’re in it, I’m not making my next start. I’m not going to take a chance of getting hurt on the last outing.”

For what it’s worth: Seattle outfielder Ichiro Suzuki became the seventh player in major league history to record at least 200 hits in his first two seasons. Only two, Lloyd Waner (1927-29) and Johnny Pesky (1942-44), had 200 hits in each of their first three seasons in the big leagues.

Trivia answer: The Cleveland Indians in 2000.

And finally: Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press likes the Detroit Lions’ new downtown stadium. He’s not crazy about the sad-sack Lions.

“When the first touchdown at Ford Field was scored on a reverse punt return, the crowd went wild,” Albom wrote after Sunday’s loss to the Green Bay Packers. “The home team had a lead! Football was being played in downtown Detroit!

“And then, reality set in. It wasn’t football, it was the Lions. You can take the team out of the ugly but you can’t take the ugly out of the team.”