Hawk Harrelson Talks Catchphrases And Fighting Lou Pinella

I absolutely can't stand Hawk as an announcer but the guy sure is crazy enough to give one hell of an interview. The White Sox play by play man did a piece for the Chicago Sun-Times and here's a snippet....

I've called 4,500 ball games -- at least.

I was blessed to know Howard Cosell and Curt Gowdy. In separate conversations, they both told me the same thing -- don't ever try to please everybody. And I don't. My detractors? I've been around too long to let it bother me.

Put it on the boooard . . . Yes! just evolved. I was playing a PGA tournament and birdied a tough par 3. The guy working the scoreboard was reading a book, so I yelled, "Hey, put it on the board." One day at the old ballpark, somebody hit a home run and I said, "You can put it on the boooard . . . Yes." That's where it came from.

He gone! Grab some bench! Can-o-corn. All the phrases from my baseball vernacular are things I said when I played.

Can-o-corn is an expression used by old storekeepers 60 years ago. They'd have aprons on and use a hook to pull the can of corn off the shelf and catch it in their aprons. Easy catch.

The Cubs-Sox rivalry is huge. I get goosebumps just thinking about teeing it up.

Lou Piniella is one of my dear friends. I just want to kick his ass.

Annnnnnnnnd, Scene! Oh why not....one more line....

When I say, "This ball game is ovaah," that means we won.

And that my friends is Hawk Harrelson in his own words. Kicking ass and taking names baby! I always love the stories about how the White Sox decided to make him a General Manager in 1986. He spent his days on the Golf course, fired both Tony LaRussa and Dave Dombrowski and traded Bobby Bonilla for Jose DeLeon. Now that's a hell of a year.

Ken "Hawk" Harrelson (Sun-Times)