OT: Ernie Harwell diagnosed with cancer

with life comes death but man, this sucks. Still smiling in the face of death, too. class act.

When I was in middle school, my family would leave early for spring break to go stay in Lakeland for spring training. We stayed at the same hotel as the Tigers and everything. I have distinct memories of Willie Hernandez wearing a three piece suit to breakfast at the hotel restaurant, Cecil Fielder and his Nissan Pathfinder, and seeing Mike Henneman just about everywhere. My brother and I were total autograph hounds, and we'd arrive early to meet the players and get signatures on cards and balls. It felt like Ernie was just about everywhere. Always super gracious with his time and talking to everyone who was around. I remember him spending a lot of time talking with my mom and dad, while my brother and I chased Tigers with Sharpie's, cards, and baseballs. He chatted with everyone who was there, and I couldn't imagine how many people he spoke to during the course of spring training. I had one ball in particular that was riddled with signatures. Mostly it was covered with second and third tier players, but here and there you could find Trammell or Sparky written in there. Forget about Cecil. He was impossible to get, although my 5-year old sister somehow managed to get a 5-year old Prince Fielder autograph. But right in the sweet spot was Ernie. While he signed he asked us how school was going, where in Michigan we were from, what positions we played, and so on. Even as a snot nosed middle school puke, I could appreciate what a great guy he was. "Michigan's Grandpa," indeed! This was about the time of "Bo Don't Know Ernie." (I still have that bumper sticker packed away somewhere.) Bo was also everywhere around Lakeland, more often than not, sitting in the stands with the fans at Joker Marchant Stadium. I remember that conventional wisdom around West Michigan was that Bo had lost it. Here he'd just fired Ernie, and there was a lot of chatter before his retirement that he needed to go so that UM could compete for more national championships under Mo. There was a LOT of that chatter after Mo coached them to a bowl victory in '88. I remember my dad nudging me in Bo's direction and telling me to go ask him for an autograph. Heck, I was TERRIFIED of Bo. I'd seen enough games to know his demeanor. Plus, he reminded me of my grandpa, and I didn't like badgering him with requests, either. Eventually I summed up the courage to go ask him to sign my baseball, and he did, right in the sweet spot. He didn't bark or growl at me, and instead gave me that look that my own grandpa gave me which was somehow reassuring and slightly unnerving all at once. In the three years that our family went down there, and with all of the signatures on that ball, somehow the second sweet spot had never been signed. Not until Bo put his pen there that humid night. To make a long story longer, I have a baseball signed by both Bo and Ernie, in opposite sweet spots, from the height of "Bo Don't Know Ernie" era. Later that summer we flew to Boston to watch the Tigers at Fenway and to tool around Boston for a weekend. Through a complete accident, we ended up at the same hotel as the Tigers. We didn't realize it until we walked into the lobby and heard, "I haven't seen you guys since Lakeland! Glad you could make it out here for a game!" It was Ernie.