Some figures transcend the sports they play, coach or broadcast.

Ernie Harwell was one of those figures.

The 92-year-old long-time Detroit Tigers announcer died Tuesday after battling bile duct cancer for several months.

I didn’t get the chance to listen to Harwell much. But I’ve read a lot about him and heard from friends who follow the Tigers that he was as good an announcer – and as good a person – as the media accounts make him out to be.

He won the Ford Frick Award for broadcasting in 1981. He won the hearts of baseball fans for nearly seven decades, culminating in a farewell night at Comerica Park last season.

He made the game about the players and the fans and he appeared to be as grateful to them for listening as they appeared to be for his broadcasting.

“Thank you for sneaking your transistor under the pillow as you grew up loving the Tigers,” he signed off saying in 2002, according to the New York Times.

Harry Carey. Herb Carneal. Harry Kalas. Now Harwell. These are the voices I grew up hearing about, listening to and watching. They were less flashy than most of the broadcasters replacing them these days.

And the game is not better for it.