An unnecessarily sad ending

There are no happy endings in life. There are joyous celebrations, but most endings are sad, drawn out affairs, turning acrimonious about petty things, big and small, mostly money and trinkets.

Ernie Harwell died nine years ago. He was 92. He was the voice of the Detroit Tigers from 1960–2002 (with a notable two-year gap) and with Baltimore, the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers. He was also the voice of the World Series on CBS radio for many years and did some TV work with the California Angels during that notable two-year gap. He was enshrined in Cooperstown (in 1981) and was such a fixture in Detroit that a gas-station owner would close his station, “fifteen minutes before Ernie.”

He was married for 68 years to a woman he met while attending Emory University in Atlanta. 1941, just after Ernie had graduated and just before he enlisted in the Marines. Lulu Tankersley (forever known as Miss Lulu) was also a college graduate, but “I knew Ernie would be doing this from the day I married him. We used to walk in the parks in Atlanta — we didn’t own a car then — and he would say, ‘What do you want to hear? Baseball? Tennis? Golf?’ And I would pick and he would start announcing, right there, a make-believe game,” she told Mitch Albom years ago.

Following two stints in the Marines, Harwell made the jump from the Atlanta Crackers to the Dodgers — by being traded for a player. But this isn’t about Ernie’s legendary career or his live-long love, Lulu. It could have been, except for two things, control and greed.