Cooperstown award series, Pierzynski: Ken Harrelson, 2020 Frick winner
Legendary Chicago White Sox broadcaster Ken “Hawk” Harrelson will be presented with the 2020 Ford C. Frick Award on Saturday. Photo: National Baseball Hall of Fame
July 22, 2021
Cooperstown. N.Y. will stage its Awards Presentation Saturday afternoon. The Hall of Fame will honour 2021 Ford C. Frick Award winner for broadcasting excellence, Al Michaels, and the 2020 Frick Award winner, Ken Harrelson; the 2021 Baseball Writers’ Association of America Career Excellence Award winner, Dick Kaegel, and the 2020 BBWAA Career Excellence Award winner, Nick Cafardo; and the 2020 Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award winner, David Montgomery. It will be a TV-only event broadcast on MLB Network. In 2020, both the Induction Ceremony and Awards Presentation were cancelled due to the pandemic. This is the third in a series of articles paying tribute to the winners that will be honoured in the ceremony this Saturday.
***
Read the first in our Cooperstown award series: Shenk: Beloved Montgomery Buck O'Neil winner
Read the second in our Cooperstown award series: Hirdt: Al Michaels, 2021 Frick winner
***
By A.J. Pierzynski as told to Bob Elliott
I’ll never forget the first time I saw him.
Our team -- the Dr. Phillips high school Panthers -- was playing and I was a grade 10 student in 1992. There was this guy walking around wearing a full sky-blue leather trench coat, carrying a golf club and taking practice swings as he watched our game.
Our school was named after Dr. Phillip Phillips. He was a doctor and a big deal in Central Florida when it came to the citrus industry, whether it was processing or packaging of frozen orange juice.
A lot of our kids came from Southwest Orlando. The longer I watched this guy in a leather jacket in 75-80-degree weather, the more I wondered if maybe he was playing through on his way to the Bay Hill course that he likes so much.
I asked someone who it was. The answer was, “Oh, that’s Ken Harrelson, the Chicago White Sox broadcaster.” This was before the internet.
I went to high school with his children Casey and Krista ... that’s how I met the man. It was, like the line in Casablanca, the start of a beautiful friendship.
My wife, Lisa, and Hawk’s daughter, Krista, were college roommates at Florida State. From that high school relationship grew a deep, long-lasting friendship which is closer today than ever:
From The Hawk trying to lobby the White Sox into drafting the catcher ...
To The Hawk helping convince me to sign with the White Sox in 2005 as a free agent ...
To White Sox veterans Paul Konerko and Mark Buehrle calling me Hawk’s “adopted son” ...
To the fridge situation.
He’s over near Bay Hill and he has beers in his fridge. He has my brand -- Stella -- set aside for me. You know ... For A.J. only. It doesn’t matter who his guest is.
I’ll be watching Saturday when Hawk will be presented with the 2020 Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting excellence. It’s a shame he wasn’t elected earlier and it’s too bad it’s going to be on TV only (MLB Network) but I’ll tell you this ... his speech is going to be a classic.
Hawk was a classic when he played ... man, the stories he tells about Mickey Mantle -- Hawk was in right field and Carl Yastrzemski was in left and they were both crying when Mantle left the field after one at bat - his final major league at bat - replaced by Andy Kosco in the bottom of the first on September 28, 1968.
He had a nine-year career with probably his best years in Boston. In 1968, he hit 35 homers and knocked in 100. The year before that he helped them to the World Series.
It was with Boston that he broke out red batting gloves, he basically introduced them to baseball. Think he told me he had played 36 holes that day and he got to the park and his hands were blistered and bleeding. Whitey Ford was pitching for the Yankees. Hawk knew he couldn’t go up to the plate like that ... so he broke out his red golf gloves.
The next day the Yankees -- Mickey Mantle and everyone -- took BP wearing red batting gloves.
After a broken leg ended his baseball playing times, he went on the pro golf tour, worked seven seasons for the Red Sox (1975-81), two years with the Yankees (1987-88) and then he came to the White Sox. He was there for 33 years stepping down after the 2018 season.
Coming out of high school I was drafted in the third round by the Minnesota Twins. Hawk pushed for them to take me, but they already used their first pick to choose another catcher Mark Johnson, a Georgia high school guy.
In 1998, I was a September call-up with the Twins. Same thing the next year. And in 2000, I took over catching in August. Then, I was the No. 1 guy until the Twins dealt me to the San Francisco Giants in a 3-for-1 deal in 2003. The Twins received Boof Bonser, Francisco Liriano and closer Joe Nathan.
After the 2004 season, I was a free agent. Hawk said to me, “Hey Big Fella, you and I need to have breakfast.” I said, “OK.” Hawk said, “Be there tomorrow. TooJays. At 7 a.m..”
I get there around 6:50, tell the person at the front I’m here to see Mr. Harrelson and they say, “Oh, he’s in his usual booth ... go on in.” Waitress comes over and asks what I want. Think it was eggs and toast. Then, she says, “The usual Mr. Harrelson?” They knew exactly what he wanted, that’s how much of a regular he was.
Hawk pushed me to sign there. He called (then general manager) Kenny Williams. He called (co-owner) Jerry Reinsdorf. I had some interest elsewhere and took some less money because I thought they had a better chance to win. They signed free agent Tadahito Iguchi, our second baseman. Hawk played an integral role in me getting to the White Sox.
In Game 3 in Houston, I get double switched out of the game for the bottom of the ninth. I’m sitting in the clubhouse with Mark Buehrle on a couch with Kenny Williams ... sipping on beers. Now Mark is the scheduled starter in Game 6. The White Sox and the Astros are scoreless in the 10th, same in the 11th, 12th and 13th. Finally, Geoff Blum hits a home run -- he had six all year. We score again, so three outs to go in the bottom of the 14th. We win and we’re up 3-0.
Damaso Marte is in his second inning of work for us. (Pitching coach) Don Cooper comes in and asks Mark ‘Can you get an out for us -- if we need you.’ The hard-throwing lefty says, ‘Well I’ve had a couple of beers, but sure I’ll give it a go.”
Marte gets the first guy, then a walk, he gets the second guy and then we boot one. In comes Mark to face Adam Everett. And on a 1-1 pitch Mark pops up Everett. “Sox Win!” as Hawk would have said had he been doing the game.
Next night we win 1-0 -- it was maybe the closest ever sweep with two one-run games, two two-run games. Hawk phoned me after the game and he was crying tears of happiness for Jerry, myself, the organization and all the Sox fans.
Hawk would come by my locker when I was going bad. He’d put one hand on one of my shoulders, one on the other and say one word. Sometime it would be “posture” meaning keep your back straight or it would be “elbow,” as in get your elbow up. The man always stood up for me. I appreciated that.
The man has a great baseball mind, a great baseball IQ. But that still doesn’t mean we don’t tease him ... like for firing Tony La Russa who is in the Hall of Fame and moving Carlton Fisk from behind the plate to left field. Fisk is also in the Hall of Fame. We’ve told him he’s been wrong before. I’m not sure he agrees with us, but he doesn’t worry about himself.
You know those drink carts they have on the air planes? Well, the cart would go past Hawk and he would scoop a whole bunch of chocolate bars. Finally, someone asked him what he did with the bars. He said he left them for the maids to eat or take home to their kids. Most hotels leave a couple of chocolates on the pillow. Hawk left a whole chocolate bar when he left the hotel to go to the park.
I hear people say that they didn’t like Hawk because he was a ‘homer.’ I want my guy, the guy doing my local broadcasts, to be a homer. You are sitting at home rooting for your team, your guys, why shouldn’t the broadcaster? It doesn’t matter if you root for the Jays or the White Sox. It makes everything better after the game whether it’s the food, the plane, whatever.
I do national broadcasts for FOX so I have to be straight down the fairway, but a home team guy? He should root for the home team. Hawk gave me a big tip telling me: “A.J. when you are doing national games, be yourself.”
The Hawk-isims are many and popular on the South side of the city.
_ Like ‘Put it On the Board, YES!’
_ His “Mercy” gasp which goes back to his Savannah, Ga. roots.
_ In 2012, plate umpire Mark Wegner ejected Sox pitcher Jose Quintana for throwing behind Ben Zobrist. Earlier in the series I slid hard into Zobrist. Then they hit me with a pitch. Hawk said something like ‘You’ve got to be BLEEPIN me?? What in the hell are you doing? What are you doing Wegner? You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me!! That is so bad that is absolutely brutal!”
_ ‘Don’t stop now boys,’ as the Sox put up a crooked number.
_ ‘Grab some bench,’ after a Sox pitcher whiffs an opposing hitter.
_ Upset at a Joe West call, Hawk said “Joe you need to go home.” Of course we’d always play one of Joe’s albums during BP.
_ Or ‘he gone.”
You hear people walking down the street and they’ll say ‘he gone,’ and I don’t even think they know the Sox or the Hawk. That’s how much it caught on with people.
I was with the Sox for parts of eight seasons and it never failed. Someone would be in the clubhouse and say ‘Did you hear what Hawk said?’ Or the next day another guy said, ‘Did you hear Kenny Williams?’ and someone else would yell, ‘You won’t believe what Ozzie Guillen said on the radio.’ It was a three ring circus some weeks.
That December day in 2019 when Hawk was named the Frick winner the Sox phoned and told me that he would be getting the call at 1 o’clock. I was there at 1:01 with a bottle of champagne -- just as they instructed me.
The thing about Hawk, maybe the most impressive thing, is the way he loves his family. I’ve always admired his family (children Krista and Casey, wife, Aris, grandsons Nico, Alexander and Hank). Hawk has done everything for his family. That’s the biggest thing about him ... he’s himself.
Jerry Reinsdorf had a ‘Hawk Day’ in 2018 for Hawk and Hawk’s line was it should have been called ‘Aris Day,’ after his wife.
You know the fact that he would be wearing a sky-blue leather trench coat watching a high school game in Florida is the most Hawk thing he could have ever done.
To Sox fans he’s bigger than life. Like a cartoon character.
***
A.J. Pierzynski made a bare-handed grab on a foul ball off the bat of Boston Red Sox infielder Eduardo Nunez in the fourth inning of a game on September 2, 2018 while in the broadcast booth with Ken “Hawk” Harrelson. Photo: MLB.com
A.J. Pierzynski works FOX-TV games with the talented Kenny Albert. Pierzynski played parts of 19 seasons in the majors, including eight with the Chicago White Sox. He has known Sox broadcaster Ken (Hawk) Harrelson since high school days in the 1990s. Pierzynski also caught for the Minnesota Twins, San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers, Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves. Known for both being durable and ability to stir the pot, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillén once joked about Pierzynski, after they won the 2005 World Series saying “If you play against him, you hate him. If you play with him, you hate him a little less.”