On at least three or four occasions over the years various Michigan politicos approached veteran Detroit Tiger broadcaster Ernie Harwell urging him to run for office.

Harwell says nobody really asked him to seek this office or that, but they did suggest, "You ought to run for something."

"What did they ask you to run for?" he was asked.

Laughing out loud, the popular Harwell noted, "They said I ought to run but not for office."

Asked the same question again, he said, "Dog catcher."

Although Harwell would not confirm it, a source indicates he was asked about running for Congress, U.S. Senate around the time Spencer Abraham ran, and for governor, and former Gov. John Engler might have been one of those asking.

The Hall of Fame announcer did reveal, "There's been some talk about that, but I know better than that. You find out how many enemies you have when you do that…It was just talk and didn't mean anything."

Harwell concluded he did not have the drive nor the ability to put the arm of people for money that it takes to seek elective office.

"Maybe if I was a little younger, but it's such a sacrifice with your family, and either you've got to be power driven or you've got to be very patriotic and make the big sacrifice, and I wasn't either so that was it."

And as for soliciting the bucks to do it, he adds, "I hate asking people for money."

So to borrow one of his descriptive phrases, his never-to-be political career was like the house by the road…standing there and not going anywhere.