Ode to Baseball

In the past month, the baseball world lost two incredibly inspiring figures in longtime Detroit Tigers announcer and Hall-of-Famer Ernie Harwell and Rockies President Keli McGregor. While both were very different in what they did for the game, the end result was the same: reminding the Nation why baseball is still deserving of the National Pastime status.

I don't intend to ramble on at how wonderful these two men were, but make no mistake, these two staples in the game of baseball were just that: wonderful men. I know, without a doubt, that the Rockies would have never made the Postseason in '07 and '09, much less the World Series in '07, if Keli was never hired back in the early days of the Rockies franchise. When he became President in 1999 (or 2001, I can't remember), he made the decision to rebuild the franchise with homegrown players.


A decade later, his dream fulfilled, the Rockies opened the 2009 season with all eight position players coming from the Colorado farm system. Not many teams can say they've accomplished that feat.



Here are some excellent articles around the nation regarding Keli's impact on the game:


Bodley remembers McGregor.

Heavy-hearted win for Rockies.

Rockies try to pick up pieces.

McGregor remembered as kind, driven.

McGregor remembered (ESPN).

McGregor's values directed Rox ascent. This is probably my favorite article, mainly because Dave Kriger, a man so critical of the Rockies over the years, salutes McGregor's incredible work he did for Colorado.


I don't know nearly as much about Ernie Harwell, but it's easy to see the impact he's had on the game, especially in Detroit and with the Tigers franchise. Harwell lived 92 long years of living and loving the game of baseball. From the days of Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle to the Tigers winning the World Series in 1984, Ernie has seen it all. While watching the MLB Network the other day, Bob Costas and John Smoltz started to reminisce about Harwell, which led to the video of Costas's interview with Harwell during the '09 World Series. I watched the interview with awe in this wise old man. Here was this 91 year-old man, knowing that cancer will inevitably take his life, and soon, but showed no sign of defeat, or despair. In fact, when Costas graciously asked him if he could recite a portion of his famous Hall-of-Fame speech, Harwell whipped out the entire poem off the top of his head! The poem was so beautiful, and his composure was so awe-inspiring, it brought tears to my eyes. I know that sounds gushy, but it was truly touching. So touching, in fact, that I want to share the poem with you folks. I hope your still reading, because it puts baseball in a different perspective and, for me, life in a different perspective. Anyway, I did what I said I wouldn't, and started to ramble, so here is Ernie Harwell's Ode to Baseball:

Baseball is the President tossing out the first pitch of the season and a scrubby schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm.A tall, thin old man waving a scorecard from the corner of his dugout. That's baseball. And so is the big, fat guy with a bulbous nose running home one of his 714 home runs.

There's a man in Mobile who remembers that Honus Wagner hit a triple in Pittsburgh forty-six years ago. That's baseball. And so is the scout reporting that a sixteen year old in Cheyenne is a coming Walter Johnson. Baseball is a spirited race of man against man, reflex against reflex. A game of inches. Every skill is measured. Every heroic, every failing is seen and cheered, or booed. And then becomes a statistic.

In baseball demoncracy shines its clearest. The only race that matters is the race to the bag. The creed is the rulebook. And color merely something to distinguish one team's uniform from another.

Baseball is a rookie. His experience no bigger than the lump in his throat as he begins fulfillment of his dream. And it's a veteran, too, a tired old man of thirty-five hoping that those aching muscles can pull him through another sweltering August and September. Nicknames are baseball, names like Zeke and Pie and Kiki and Home Run and Cracker and Dizzy and Dazzy.

Baseball is the clear, cool eyes of Rogers Hornsby. The flashing spikes of Ty Cobb, an over aged pixie named Rabbit Maranville.

Baseball, just a game as simple as a ball and a bat. Yet, as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. It's a sport, a business and sometimes almost even a religion.

Why the fairytale of Willie Mays making a brilliant World Series catch and then dashing off to play stickball in the streets with his teenage pals. That's baseball. So is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrig saying, "I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth."

Baseball is cigar smoke, hot roasted peanuts. The Sporting News, ladies day, "down in front," 7th inning stretch, Take Me Out to the Ballgame, and the Star Spangled Banner.

Baseball is a man named Campanella telling the Nation's business leaders, "You have to be a man to be a big leaguer, but you have to have a lot of little boy in you too."

Baseball is a tongue-tied kid from Georgia growing up to be an announcer and praising the Lord for showing him the way to Cooperstown. This is a game for America, baseball. This is a game for boys and for men.

I found the video of that interview, but unfortunately I can't embed it onto Blogger. So if you want to hear it from Ernie, watch it here.

This speech reminded me of the simple joys baseball can bring. For me, baseball is going to Coors Field and watching the Rockies struggle through the early 00's, only to revive their franchise, a franchise built by Keli McGregor, and find their way to the World Series in 2007. That's baseball, and it is the game that holds the most special place in my heart.