Through Good Times and Bad, Scully Remains the Driving Force

One foul morning about 20 years ago, I was speeding to work in a bad mood when I had to swerve around a driver who’d stopped his Cadillac too far in the intersection.

I readied a gesture that would express my wrath, but as I drew closer, some mysterious force seized control of my body. My gesture became a waving hand, my scowl a smile.

The Caddie’s driver was Vin Scully.

Every Dodger fan I’ve told this story to has agreed that they’d have reacted the same way, and none could think of another celebrity capable of evoking a similar response.

He’s not just the best at his job, he’s consistently better at his job than anyone else at any job.

I grew up in Los Angeles, coming of age in the 1960s. There were a thousand summer nights when I played ball with neighborhood kids in the streets while listening to Vinny on a tinny transistor radio. You could follow the flight of the ball in his voice.

To this day I still prefer to hear him on radio, painting the action in my imagination. Sadly for me, he now works mostly on television. I can no longer sit out in my backyard under a starry sky and listen to my old friend. Ross Porter and Rick Monday may be nice men, but they’re not and never will be friends. And so I switch on the tube, just to check in with Vinny. The team could be losing, 14-3, and I’ll keep watching until he signs off for the night.

But when he’s sometimes replaced by other announcers, there might as well be a rainout. I turn off the moment I hear them, even if the game’s on the line with two out in the bottom of the ninth and the bases loaded.

I doubt I’m alone in feeling this way.

Make no mistake. The glue that has held the Dodgers together from Robinson to Koufax to Garvey to Gibson to Sheffield, from O’Malley to Murdoch, is Vin Scully. He has always been a greater star than anyone on the field. And he fills the seats with fans whose affection for the Dodgers has been nurtured by his voice. I believe the one reason the Angels have never really caught on here is that they don’t have Vinny, and I predict that Dodger Stadium without him sitting in the booth will look as empty as Edison Field does now.

Vin Scully is in his 70s. His last inning for the Dodgers can’t be too far away. If I were Fox, I’d be quivering in abject fear of his retirement. As for me, I’m trying to savor every moment until that night.

JOEL ENGEL, Los Angeles