Great Detroit Radio

I feel privileged to have grown up in the Detroit area, listening to the great radio that came from the Motor City.    "The Lone Ranger," "Challenge of the Yukon," The Green Hornet,"  "The Hermit's Cave." Stations identified themselves with,   WJR, the Goodwill Station in the Golden Tower of the Fisher  Building. Or   WWJ, the Detroit News.   I don't recall if  WXYZ,  which  originated the Ranger, the Hornet and the story of Yukon King had an identifying phrase. .  I seem to have a  recollection that they might have identified it as being in the Maccabees Building.  Those were the days when radio had class.
Any Detroit kid from that era can still name many of  the Detroit Tigers play-by-play announcers.  I remember Ty Tyson,  who served from before I was born on  into the '40s. That's when the Tigers played at Briggs Stadium.  There was Harry Heilmann and Paul Carey. The greatest of all was the late Ernie Harwell , currently being eulogized  throughout the baseball world. He was at the Tigers microphones for more than 40 years.    I was never a baseball fan but Ernie was a superb radio broadcaster and that's what I cared about.
When I got into the radio business  I spent many hours "riding gain" on the Tigers games.  That's radio talk for sitting at the control board, listening to the game and inserting local station breaks and commercials when the play-by-play men called for them. I literally fell asleep at the switch  at least once and let the Detroit call letters get on the air on the Flint Station.  I  never heard about it, so I assume the boss wasn't listening. 
The best part of the pre-game line checks that were sent to the stations  was listening to Tigers engineer Howard Stitzel  with his off the cuff chit chat and comments about the babes in the stands.. The listeners didn't hear that, but I'm sure Howard  had lots of fans at the stations.  As of last July, Howard , then 92, was the grand marshal at the parade in Southfield.  .  He said he plans to be 100.  I hope he makes it.  It was from Howard that I first heard that  most descriptive and colorful report of  the weather in the ballpark.  ....
"It's colder than a witch's tit!"