Yesterday, the Tigers celebrated Ernie Harwell’s career as it was announced a couple of weeks ago that he has inoperable cancer.  Ernie kept it short and sweet which is one of the things that made him a great radio announcer.  I think someone had a similar sign at the game, but for me, Ernie Harwell = Baseball.  I grew up in a day when there weren’t as many games on television so the radio was the medium of choice for baseball fans.  I’ve heard this from others, but Ernie’s voice was what I fell asleep to as a kid most nights and if you walked (yes, we did this back in the day) around your neighborhood, you’d see a handful of people sitting in their garage or on their porch with the radio tuned to the Tigers.

One of my highpoints since I began writing was having the chance to interview Ernie Harwell.  It was in early 2007 when he had just come out with his audio scrapbook.  You can check out part one and part two over at the Hardball Times.

The Tigers came back from a 3-0 deficit yesterday so the Tigers are doing their best to hold back the Twins.  Eddie Bonine gave up three runs by the end of the fourth and he pretty much left it up to the pen.  Four relievers then combined to throw four shutout innings to close out the game and that gave the Tigers the chance to come back.  Zach Miner threw a shutout sixth and he improved to 7-5 while Fernando Rodney did it in the ninth and he picked up his 33rd save.  Bobby Seay picked up his 27th hold and that’s amongst the league leaders.

Adam Everett led the Tigers at the plate.  He had an RBI double in the fourth and then he singled home the tying run in the sixth. Placido Polanco and Curtis Graderson also had two hits each and it was Polanco who singled home the go ahead run in the 4-3 win.

The Tigers still have the 4 1/2 game lead and their magic number 13.  The Tigers play this afternoon and that’ll set the scene for the Tigers three game set in Minnesota this weekend.  It’s Edwin Jackson against Zach Greinke so this should be a good one.

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