The great Detroit Tiger radio broadcaster, Ernie Harwell, died yesterday at the age of 92. It was the news I knew was inevitable, since he had been diagnosed with inoperable bile duct cancer, but was dreading all the same. I knew it would be hard to take. If anyone seemed like he should live forever, it was Ernie. It doesn't seem fair that someone as gentlemanly and decent as Ernie Harwell should be taken away from us. Like generations of Michiganians, I grew up with Ernie's voice. He was one of the people that introduced me to baseball and the Detroit Tigers. He was part of my childhood and young adulthood. There are so many memories I have that are tied to that distinctive Southern accent: my dad outside working on the house or in the yard with his old paint-splattered transistor radio, and Ernie describing the action at Michigan and Trumbull; upstairs in my room on a warm summer night in the great year of 1984, the sound of crickets outside, a breeze pushing up the blind...
I am plopped on my couch with a cat and am seriously concerned I might fall asleep before I can do a blog entry. I stayed up too late last night, which is a real hazard when the Lions play a night game. It's a few hours later and somehow, I'm still awake, but probably not for long. We got a second wind and watched the new episodes of Abbott Elementary and Silo, but now I'm back to being exhausted and ready for bed.
As is often the case when a famous actor dies, I immediately have to investigate their filmographies and see the movies they did that I have never seen. Is it morbid? Maybe? I like to think of it as honoring their careers and a convenient cinematic educational experience. I recently did this with Robert Redford. Soon after he died, I watched The Candidate , The Hot Rock , and 3 Days of the Condor in quick succession. The Candidate is a fascinating portrait of a man who goes from principled do-gooder lawyer to cynical presidential candidate. It's also a quaint reminder of a time when American politics didn't seem quite as cutthroat and despicable as it is in 2025. The Hot Rock is a funny crime/jewel heist caper that had to have been an influence on Steven Soderbergh's Ocean movies, and it has to be said that Redford is the most handsome ex-con in film history. 3 Days of the Condor is a movie I'd heard referenced multiple times in the last few years, and it didn...
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