Ernie Harwell, Hall of Fame broadcaster and "Voice of the Detroit Tigers", for 42 years, broadcast six decades of baseball history to fans all over America. He was calling Brooklyn Dodger's games when Jackie Robinson was breaking the color barrier, he was doing New York Giants play by play in 1951 when Willie Mays began his Hall of Fame career, and the Giants won the Pennant on Bobby Thompson's "shot heard 'round the world". In his years with the Tigers he called two World Championships and the exploits of Al Kaline, Denny McClain, Jack Morris, Kirk Gibson, and many other great players on his WJR radio broadcasts. Although My Father's Faith is set against the backdrop of Ernie Harwell's amazing experience in baseball, it's not just a sports book. It's a very personal story of my dad's spiritual journey, as seen through the eyes of his youngest son. If you're a fan who often listened to my dad's broadcasts, if you were a baseball or media professional who knew him as a colleague, or one of his many friends, I think you'll enjoy this book. You'll discover how his challenging childhood in Atlanta affected his early perspective in life, how an experience in his second year with the Tigers changed things dramatically for him, and how he became the amazing man we knew and loved.
About the Author: Gray Harwell graduated from The University of Wisconsin in 1970 and he and his wife, Sandy, moved back to Detroit to be near their families. Gray served as a Campus Life Director with Detroit Youth for Christ, as a counselor and administrator with two social service agencies, and as a Youth Pastor in the early seventies. The Harwells spent their next twenty years ministering on college campuses in California and Michigan, and pastoring churches in Michigan, Tennessee, and Georgia. In the eighties Gray served as Baseball Chapel leader for the Detroit Tigers, had a daily radio ministry in Detroit, and he and Sandy produced and hosted a network TV ministry to marriages and families. For the last nineteen years the Harwells have encouraged pastors and spiritual leaders through Cherith Ministries, which they founded in Atlanta, Georgia in 1995. Many spiritual leaders have been strengthened in their relationships with God, and have also experienced a new depth of unity in the Body of Christ which has impacted their churches and communities. After Gray's father, Hall of Fame baseball broadcaster, Ernie Harwell, passed away in 2010, Gray wrote My Father's Faith, and produced a companion DVD of his father's last interview. Gray shares the story of his father's faith in churches and community groups and he and Sandy are developing other ministries to carry on Ernie's legacy of faith and compassion. Together In Prayer (TIP), a partnership of churches in Southwest Florida, is one of these new ministries. Since May, 2012, Gray has been leading TIP's ministry of bringing churches together in prayer, service and outreach. Gray and Sandy have four adult children and four grandchildren and live in Estero, Florida.