Firing Ernie Harwell Was the Worst Decision in Detroit Sports History

Detroit — They say that time heals all wounds, but it’s been 36 years and time has not healed this one. The scab that appeared on my Detroit Tigers soul in December 1990 hasn’t healed one iota.

Like every fan of the Detroit Tigers who was around in 1990, my soul was crushed when I first heard the news that Ernie Harwell, the voice of the Detroit Tigers, had been fired as the team’s radio announcer, a job he had held since 1960.

This was like firing Santa Claus or telling Mr. Rogers he’d have to find a new neighborhood. Harwell was the most beloved figure in Detroit sports history, and I’d put him at the top of a list that includes Barry Sanders, Al Kaline, and Gordie Howe.

The fact that Ernie was fired by another icon, Bo Schembechler—the former Michigan football coach who was way out of his league as the recently hired president of the Tigers—made it all the more confusing and frustrating.

So for those of you who weren’t around back then—or were too young to understand why Dad was crying in his den back in 1990—here’s the story of the Worst Decision in Detroit Sports History.

It all starts in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, when very few baseball games were televised. We’d be lucky to see the Tigers once or twice a month on TV (it got a little better in the ‘80s), so most of followed the team by listening to Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey on WJR. Ernie had been the team’s announcer since 1960, and he and Paul were like old friends we’d spend every night in the summer with.

We loved them both, but especially Ernie. He was gentlemanly and friendly and had some little quirks that we loved. He’d start the first broadcast of spring training by reading the poetic Bible passage from the Song of Solomon, letting us know that winter was over and spring had begun. Every time a foul ball went into the stands, he’d make up the hometown of the person who caught it. “And a man from Sterling Heights is going home with that one…”

He was ours and we loved him. It might be hard for younger fans to understand just how much you could love your team’s announcer but trust me: Every Tigers fan loved Ernie Harwell.

Everything was hunky dory, but the story started to change in 1983 when Tom Monaghan, the pizza magnate from Ann Arbor who owned Domino’s, bought the Tigers. The team won the World Series in 1984, and life was good. That was about to change.

One of Monaghan’s best friends was Bo Schembechler, the football coach at Michigan. He idolized Bo. So when Bo retired in 1989 as U-M’s coach, Monaghan thought it would be a brilliant move to hire him to be the Tigers’ president. The move was announced in January 1990, and most of us thought, “Well, what the hell? I’m not sure Bo Schembechler knows anything about baseball, but he’s only the team president. What’s the worst that can happen?”

We found out on Dec. 19, 1990. That’s when WJR announced that Ernie Harwell had been fired. Ernie would be allowed to do one more season, but after 1991, he was gone.

It was made as sort of a joint announcement by the Tigers and WJR, but it quickly came out that Bo Schembechler had made the decision. He supposedly thought Ernie was too old and boring.

When Tigers Nation heard the news, it was like a kick to the stomach. We couldn’t believe it. The prevailing opinion by every fan, sportswriter and commentator in the state was that we loved Ernie and we hated Bo and we couldn’t believe this had happened. Our sorrow quickly turned to anger.

Bill Bonds, the legendary anchorman at Detroit’s Channel 7, one of the crankiest men who ever lived, delivered an epic commentary that spoke for all of us.

“It is time for a commentary on the Ernie story. I have never seen a worse decision handled so badly, so ineptly, so insensitively. I have never seen and heard such white-hot anger from so many people: lawyers, ex-cons, hookers and nuns; sportswriters and crap-shooting all-nighters,” he said.

Amen, Bill.

Despite the outrage, Bo and the Tigers stuck to the plan. Ernie was allowed to work the 1991 season and then he was gone. He was replaced by a couple guys named Rick Rizzs and Bob Rathbun, both of whom were fine broadcasters and great guys who went on to excellent careers with other teams. We hated them. We hated them because they weren’t Ernie Harwell, and they never had a chance.

So the story had a happy ending starting in August 1992, when Monaghan sold the team to his pizza rival, Mike Illitch of Little Caesars Pizza. Right before he sold the team, he fired Bo as team president. That whole thing had been a disaster, and Monaghan knew it.

When Illitch took over as the new owner, one of the very first things he did was ask Ernie if he would come back. Ernie agreed, so starting in 1993, he was back in the Tigers’ broadcast booth.

In 1993, he shared the booth with Rizzs and Rathbun, calling the middle innings. Then they were fired, and from 1994 to 1998, Ernie did the games on TV while Frank Beckmann handled the radio broadcasts. In 1999, Ernie was back as the full-time announcer on the radio, and he held that job until he retired on his own terms in 2002.

He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and the Tigers erected a statue of him at Comerica Park. He passed away in 2010 at age 92, and we still miss him to this day.

We’re also still pissed. One season without Ernie Harwell was one too many.