Porter Gets Some Deserved Respect

We’d heard his voice enough to know that it wasn’t quite right, exactly.

We’d seen him so many times ambling through the hallways of Dodger Stadium, body bent slightly forward as if into a slight breeze, recorder and microphone dangling from his hands, forever leading with his thin and inviting smile, to know that it wasn’t quite him, exactly.

Ross Porter’s family, some of whom had traveled from Oklahoma and Texas, and Peter O’Malley sat to his right. Vin Scully was to his left.

The banquet room in Toluca Lake, framed in dark wood paneling, carpeted in burgundy and decorated by old golfers captured in black and white, had filled in between them on Monday afternoon, and few had come for the chicken.

Porter stood twice at the lectern, stared twice into the microphone, and took what he’d had coming with dignity, again. He’d made this something of a philosophy, as Scully would later remind us.

Four months after his final inning with the Dodgers, Porter was inducted into the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Hall of Fame and recognized as its top radio play-by-play man for 2004.

By rule, every fourth year it goes to someone other than Scully.

So it came that Porter held a glass trophy toward the chandeliers, leaned into an old gray friend that would carry his voice again and spoke with a trembling edge that was at least resolute, at most defiant, and trying vainly to be familiar.

As a few Dodger employees tugged at their ties and became suddenly fascinated by their napkins, Porter told them all -- friends, family, writers, broadcasters and former employers -- “You have issued a statement that comes through loud and undeniably clear. And I thank you.”

It was the prerogative of the Dodgers and broadcast partners KFWB and Fox Sports Net, of course. It is Frank McCourt’s team. It is Lon Rosen’s job.

Neither attended Monday’s lunch, which was just as well, probably.

But, they missed it when Scully bowed his head slightly and said, “Ross, I have not had this feeling since Jerry [Doggett] left us.”

Porter pushed through two short speeches. At times it appeared he strained to manage his place between October’s regret and January’s ceremony, where empathy for momentary unemployment ran pretty thick. Many had lived themselves on the edge of a boss’ whim, had measured their final months of indenture with something approaching anxiety.

Even Tom Kelly, who accompanied Porter into the Hall of Fame, was moved to hint, “My phone is still working.”

As usual, it was Scully who put the words to what we watched. He implied what we thought, that Porter is a good man with good values who was swallowed by an organization’s urge for something new and different and, evidently, not Porter.

Uncomfortably, sadly, we watched Porter work through the summer, knowing what fall would bring.

“That,” Porter’s wife, Linda, said, “was the hardest part of it.”

Even if we didn’t pull for the announcer, we felt for the man. He’ll have other jobs; this was the one he wanted. We could understand that. Scully could.

“He would never make noise. He would never object. He would never bring the spotlight,” he said.

When it ended predictably, Scully said, Porter’s reaction was just so.

“There was no protest,” he said. “There were no vehement cries.”

There were, however, Linda, and their four children, and the dozen grandchildren, another coming any day. And his agent, Porter said, is working on several fronts, perhaps another job announcing major-league baseball, perhaps a talk show.

Porter said he is, “Fine. I’m fine. Doing fine. This woman has been the strength for me.”

Beside him, Linda smiled.

“I feel as well now as I have in a long time,” he said. “I feel inner peace right now. No anger.”

He looked again to Linda, who said, “It’s the most amazing thing, the peace he has had. He even sleeps well. He’s embracing life.”

For now, it won’t include the Dodgers, not even for a night. They have asked if he would come to a game, where they would honor his 28 years with them. Porter shook his head slowly. No noise. No spotlight.

“I really think we’re past that,” he said. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that. That’s over. We will just go on.”

Even if he wasn’t exactly Ross Porter as we remembered him, he will be again soon. In the meantime, there’d be nothing wrong with pulling for the announcer and the man.

“Believe me,” Scully said, “we have not heard the last from [Ross Porter].”