The legendary Ernie Harwell, perhaps the greatest baseball announcer who ever lived, is dead at 92.

Perhaps nothing ever written better encapsulates the sacred place of the national pastime in American life better than his 1995 essay, “A Game for All America,” in which he notes:

Baseball? It’s just a game — as simple as a ball and a bat. Yet, as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. It’s a sport, business — and sometimes even religion.

Baseball is Tradition in flannel knickerbockers. And Chagrin in being picked off base. It is Dignity in the blue serge of an umpire running the game by rule of thumb. It is Humor, holding its sides when an errant puppy eludes two groundskeepers and the fastest outfielder. And Pathos, dragging itself off the field after being knocked from the box.

Thanks, Ernie. You’ll be missed.