He Gone! A Cubs Fan Says Goodbye to Hawk Harrelson
Several years ago, I wrote a list of 101 reasons why Chicago is the best baseball town in America; but I can boil all the reasons down to one statement: Chicago is divided into two warring factions, the Cubs and the White Sox. Custom demands that all Chicagoans must express their allegiance loudly and repeatedly, but—most important of all—definitively for either the Northsiders or the Southsiders.
Jay Johnstone, who is on a long list of those who played on both sides of town during his career, once said whenever a person tries telling you they are a fan of both Chicago baseball teams, you should immediately check your wallet, because such a person cannot be trustworthy. And I’ll be the first to say that Johnstone is absolutely correct in this assessment.
Players on the field come and go, but the announcers in the booth are the ones who can establish credibility as the face and the voice of a franchise. Harry Caray was a White Sox announcer in the 1970s and early ’80s, before he came across town to work for the Cubs. And when he left in 1982, it opened up an opportunity for Ken Harrelson, who will always be known as Hawk.
Hawk Harrelson was a former player from the 1960s and ’70s, who is credited with being the first player to use batting gloves in a game. Fifty years ago, the now commonplace act of wearing a glove into the batter’s box was a revolutionary act, and Hawk was the one who did it first.
After Hawk’s playing days were over, he went into the Sox broadcasting booth, but it was the Boston Red Sox who gave him his first opportunity. He was the team’s color announcer when he attacked management in 1981. Such criticism was both unexpected and unwelcomed, and Hawk was fired after the season was over.
Coming to Chicago—where he had never played during his career—might not have been Hawk’s first choice. He had his best playing days at Fenway Park, and what team doesn’t want one of their own to be their announcer? But Chicago offered a new lease on life in the broadcast booth, and Hawk embraced it with gusto. He became the face and the voice of the franchise, and has remained so until Sunday, when he broadcast his final game in Chicago.
“You can put it on the board! Yes!” was Hawk’s signature home-run call, and it became as ubiquitous as any the game has ever heard. It is so well known that when Kyle Schwarber hit a home run on Sunday, Cubs announcers Len Kasper and Jim Deshaies paid tribute to Hawk by using his call themselves.
After the game ended, players from both teams emptied out of the dugouts and saluted the man who gave fans his own unique take on the game for well over four decades. It was a show of unity, in a city where such things generally don’t happen. And Hawk Harrelson was deserving of it, without a doubt.
Congratulations, Hawk. This Cubs fan never agreed with a word you said, but I always admired the way you said it. Bravo!
