Hawk by Ken "Hawk" Harrelson

Author:Ken "Hawk" Harrelson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Triumph Books
Published: 2018-04-06T04:00:00+00:00

14. Finding A Home In The Booth

THAT TELEPHONE CALL FROM BOSTON INDEED CHANGED MY life forever.

Dick O’Connell, the team’s president and general manager, was on the other end of the line.

“Hawk, we have an opening for the color guy on our TV network since Johnny Pesky is leaving the booth,” Dick told me. “We want you to come up and audition for it.”

The timing couldn’t have been better.

It turned out they had hundreds of applicants for the job. It was the Red Sox after all, but I figured that since Dick himself called me, he wanted to give me the first crack at the job. All I had to do was show some potential behind the microphone.

I flew to Boston, spent about five minutes at the Channel 38 studio calling a replay of some game clips, and that was that.

They must have liked what they heard, because I got the job.

To say I felt natural behind a microphone or in front of a camera would be a gross understatement. I had spent my baseball career talking to the media. Before most of my games as a player, the broadcast guys from other teams, such as Ernie Harwell or Harry Caray, would interview me. They each told me I was a good interview who gave them colorful quotes and insights—and that is why they usually came to me in the first place.

At times while I played, I even pulled double duty.

As I stood at first base or in right field, I called the game as it happened just as if I was sitting upstairs in the booth. An opposing batter would strike out and I would pipe up, “He gone!” Or, “There’s a long drive down the left-field line… it’s fading foul.”

In the back of my mind, I always thought that when my playing time was up, I would want to try broadcasting.

And now that time had arrived.

I read plenty of self-help books in those days and I found one, Golf in the Kingdom, written by Michael Murphy, that hit home with me. It was all about handling the negative things in your life. I liked it so much, I read it twice.

When I arrived in Winter Haven, Florida, for Red Sox spring training, I felt like a new man with a new outlook. It was as if I didn’t have a care in the world, and all the pressure on me from my three years in golf had evaporated.

Before I knew it, my thoughts were drifting back toward the golf course.

I headed out to Lake Regions Golf Club, where Bobby Wilber was the pro. I bogied only the fourth hole, and then I missed an eight-footer for eagle on the 18th. I shot a 62, breaking Ben Hogan’s course record by three shots.

I got back to the Holiday Inn where we were staying and I told Aris, “I might give golf one more chance.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

I told her that I had just broken the course record by three shots.

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