That is one of the classic lines from one of the best computer baseball games ever made "Ernie Harwell's Broadcast Blast Baseball" (it was also known as APBA Baseball for Windows) It was a great game, made all the better for it's full audio. Ernie called every game as if it were a July Sunday day game. My brother and I would sometimes put on a game with two AI players just to listen to the great Harwell call the action.

The game itself was well done, although not as feature rich as todays games like OOTP. You could only play one season, doing drafts was pretty difficult, and the interface wasn't great. Oh, and the voice of a vendor would sometimes inexplicably go on for a 30 second solo. But still it was baseball at a non-video game patient beautiful pace. If you wanted to pinch hit, Ernie would talk about "manager Denney (if you were lucky enough for your name to be one of the few in the database) is looking at his lineup card. Looks like he wants the right hander to come in."

I love OOTP & MLB The Show, they are great baseball games, but they play at a videogame speed. I finish a game in 20 minutes. With APBA, the game played much longer, but you enjoyed it. It captured the feel of listening to a game on the radio. The languid ebb and flow of innings. And, there was enough audio that it didn't feel repetitive.

I guess all of this is my way of acknowledging that Ernie Harwell had a huge impact on my life as a baseball fan, even though I never saw a Tigers game in my life. Thanks Ernie, and good luck with your new adventure. I hope I have as much courage and positivity if faced with a similar situation.

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