George Kell

It's happening. We all know that it would someday, yet we're never quite prepared for it when it actually does. Our boyhood heroes begin dying and we are saddened yet reflective about what it all means.

George Kell passed away yesterday at the age of 86. I never saw him play, but he was a Hall of Fame third baseman for years in the forties and fifties, mainly known when playing for the Detroit Tigers. In this internet age, I was pleased (in a way) to discover that he played his last game on the day my parents were married, September 14, 1957. He was known more to me as a homespun southern gentleman of a broadcaster, having done a combination of radio but mainly television broadcasts for the Tigers for many years.

I can hear many of his catchphrase calls echo through my mind in the last day. "Thank you Larry and good evening everyone," at the start of a telecast when he was teamed with Larry Oosterman in the seventies. Or perhaps more famously as a game dwindled to an end: "Ground ball to short...should be the ballgame...it is." He said it most excitedly when Jesse Barfield, I think, grounded out to Frank Tanana on the final play of 1987 for the Tigers to finish an improbable comeback to wrest the East Division title away from the Blue Jays in the last week of that season. His relaxed drawl was the perfect compliment to savoring a good ballgame.

He ought to have seen his number, 21, retired by the Tigers in tribute to his great service to the club. Posthumous awards always seem a little cheeky to me, but how about giving it some thought, Mr. Ilitch? Surely Mr. Kell merits the gesture.

His passing saddens me for that little extra bit of lost youth fading away, but primarily because it means we have lost another great human being and local treasure. Good night, George Kell, and fare thee well.