On August 2, 1981, Ernie Harwell received the greatest reward baseball can bestow, induction into its esteemed Hall of Fame.

On that day, Ernie was given the Ford C. Frick award for his priceless contributions to baseball. Like the man, his speech at Cooperstown was a grand slam. It included Ernie's definition of baseball, written by him in 1955 "to express my feelings about this greatest game of all."

I am privileged to share with Ernie Harwell fans this timeless definition of baseball, excerpted - with his kind permission - from his 1986 book titled Tuned to Baseball

Baseball is the President tossing out the first ball of the season. And a scrubby schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm.

A tall, thin old man waving a scorecard from the corner of his dugout - that's baseball. So is the big, fat guy with a bulbous nose running home one of his 714 home runs.

There's a man in Mobile who remembers that Honus Wagner hit a triple in Pittsburgh 46 years ago - that's baseball. And so is the scout reporting that a 16-year-old sandlot pitcher in Cheyenne is the coming Walter Johnson.

Baseball is a spirited race of man against man, reflex against reflex. A game of inches. Every skill is measured. Every heroic, every failing is seen and cheered - or booed. And then becomes a statistic.

In baseball, democracy shines its clearest. The only race that matters is the race to the bag. The creed is the rule book. And color, merely something to distinguish one team's uniform from another's.

Baseball is a rookie (his experience no bigger than the lump in his throat) as he begins fulfillment of his dream. It's a veteran, too - a tired old man of 35 hoping those aching muscles can pull him through another sweltering August and September.

Nicknames are baseball. Names like Zeke and Pie and Kiki, and Home Run and Cracker and Dizzy and Dazzy.

Baseball is the clear, cool eyes of Rogers Hornsby; the flashing spikes of a Ty Cobb; and an over-aged pixie named Rabbit Maranville.

Baseball? Just a game - as simple as a ball and bat. And yet, as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. A sport, business and sometimes almost even a religion.

Why, the fairy tale of Willie Mays making a brilliant World Series catch and then dashing off to play stick-ball in the streets with his teenage pals - that's baseball. So is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrig saying: "I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this Earth."

Baseball is cigar smoke, hot-roasted peanuts, The Sporting News, Ladies Day, Down in Front, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," and "The Star Spangled Banner."

Baseball is a tongue-tied kid from Georgia growing up to be an announcer and praising the Lord for showing him the way to Cooperstown. This is a game for America. Still a game for America - this baseball!

Ernie Harwell, 1955