General Manager and Broadcaster
After his time on the links brought minimal compensation over the next few years, Harrelson turned to a broadcasting career, beginning in 1975 with the Red Sox on WSBK-TV, partnering with Dick Stockton. He became highly popular, especially after being teamed with veteran play-by-play man Ned Martin in 1979, but after being publicly critical of player personnel decisions made by Boston co-owner Haywood Sullivan, Harrelson was fired at the close of the 1981 season.
Harrelson served as a Chicago White Sox announcer from 1982 to 1985 and briefly left broadcasting during the 1986 season to become the White Sox's General Manager. During his one season as GM, Harrelson fired field manager Tony La Russa (who was soon hired by the Oakland Athletics) and assistant general manager Dave Dombrowski (who became baseball's youngest general manager with the Montreal Expos just two years later). Harrelson also traded rookie Bobby Bonilla, later a six-time All-Star, to the Pittsburgh Pirates for pitcher José DeLeón.
During the 1987–1988 seasons he was the play-by-play man for New York Yankees games on SportsChannel New York.
From 1984–1989, Harrelson served as a backup color commentator on NBC's Game of the Week broadcasts alongside play-by-play man Jay Randolph. In 1994, Harrelson served as a broadcaster for the short-lived Baseball Network and was the US broadcaster for the Japan Series that aired through the Prime-SportsChannel regional networks.
Since 1990, he has served as the main play-by-play announcer for the White Sox television broadcasts teaming up with Tom Paciorek until 2000 and "DJ" Darrin Jackson from 2000 - 2008. In 2009, former Chicago Cubs color analyst Steve Stone, who broadcast with the late hall of fame broadcaster Harry Caray and later Chip Caray, began accompanying Harrelson in the television booth. During this time he won five Emmy Awards and two Illinois Sportscaster of the Year awards.
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Famous quotes containing the words general and/or manager:
“As a general truth, it is safe to say that any picture that produces a moral impression is a bad picture.”
—Edmond De Goncourt (1822–1896)
“Nothing could his enemies do but it rebounded to his infinite advantage,—that is, to the advantage of his cause.... No theatrical manager could have arranged things so wisely to give effect to his behavior and words. And who, think you, was the manager? Who placed the slave-woman and her child, whom he stooped to kiss for a symbol, between his prison and the gallows?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)