{"id":35462,"date":"2022-08-04T16:55:47","date_gmt":"2022-08-04T16:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/opinion-vin-scully-made-los-angeles-baseball-fans-bring-radios-to-the-stands\/"},"modified":"2022-08-04T16:55:47","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T16:55:47","slug":"opinion-vin-scully-made-los-angeles-baseball-fans-bring-radios-to-the-stands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/opinion-vin-scully-made-los-angeles-baseball-fans-bring-radios-to-the-stands\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion |  Vin Scully made Los Angeles baseball fans bring radios to the stands"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-grBDNq hide-for-print mb-sm undefined\">\n<div class=\"PJLV PJLV-iAjpuP-css flex items-center\" data-qa=\"article-actions\">\n<div class=\"wpds-c-fLphcs\"><button class=\"wpds-c-gNHrZC wpds-c-gNHrZC-bywHgD-variant-primary wpds-c-gNHrZC-biynoz-density-compact wpds-c-gNHrZC-hZSyid-isOutline-true wpds-c-gNHrZC-ejCoEP-icon-left wpds-c-gNHrZC-futxca-cv wpds-c-gNHrZC-ihhnWqF-css\"><button class=\"PJLV PJLV-igcOMTV-css\"><svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 16\" fill=\"currentColor\" aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\" role=\"img\" class=\"wpds-c-coakfw wpds-c-efqEZa focus-highlight flex items-center justify-center brad-lg pointer transition-400 ease-in-out transition-colors\" aria-label=\"Comment on this story\" iconstyle=\"[object Object]\"><title>Comment on this story<\/title><path d=\"M14 14V2H2v9.47h8.18L12.43 13ZM3 10.52V3h10v9.23l-2.5-1.66Z\"\/><\/svg><\/button><\/p>\n<p>Comment<\/p>\n<p><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"teaser-content grid-center\">\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\">Schools sometimes ask me to come talk about sportswriting.  When I do, I always get up, put some text on a big screen and say, \u201cSee if you can guess who wrote it.  It&#8217;s about Sandy Koufax&#8217;s epic perfect game in 1965.\u201d  On the screen, it says:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\"><i>You can almost taste the pressure now \u2026 Koufax lifted his cap, ran his fingers through his black hair, then pulled the cap back down, fussing at the bill \u2026 There&#8217;s 29,000 people in the ballpark and a million butterflies \u2026 I would think that the mound at Dodger Stadium right now is the loneliest place in the world.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\">Red Smith?  Mike Lupica?  Jim Murray?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\">nope.  trick question.  It wasn&#8217;t written at all.  it was spoken, <i>live<\/i>as it happened, by Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\">That&#8217;s how wonderful Scully was at calling a baseball game.  Words he ad-libbed could keep an engraver busy for decades.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\">Scully, who died Tuesday at age 94, was such a joy to listen to that even fans who were <i>at the game<\/i> brought radios. <i>Sure, my eyes saw it, but it&#8217;s not real until Vin describes it.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\">And not just fans.  One time in the 1970s, Dodgers pitcher Jerry Reuss was on the mound at Dodger Stadium, and he could hear on all the radios that Vinny was in the middle of a story.  \u201cI can hear by his cadence, his inflection,\u201d Reuss said.  So he stepped off the rubber and fussed with the rosin bag.  \u201cHe got his point out,\u201d Reuss recalled a few years ago, \u201cpeople laughed, and without missing a beat, he said, &#8216;Now Reuss is ready to deliver.&#8217;  \u201d Nobody delivered like Scully.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\">That&#8217;s the most remarkable part of Scully&#8217;s greatness.  He did 95 percent of it without a partner, by design.  Why did he need a partner when he had <i>you<\/i>?  \u201cI want it to feel like I&#8217;m talking to you,\u201d he used to say.  \u201cThat&#8217;s why you&#8217;ll hear me use a lot of, &#8216;Did you know that?&#8217;  or &#8216;You&#8217;re probably wondering why.&#8217;  I don&#8217;t really do play-by-play.  I do conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-el=\"text\" class=\"font--article-body font-copy gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\">My God, could he converse.  Scully was so entertaining he could make you look forward to a Los Angeles traffic jam.  Living in LA, I see someone sitting at the wheel of their car in the driveway, engine running, staring at the dashboard, and I know what&#8217;s going on: Scully is in mid-story and they just can&#8217;t bear going into the house before it&#8217;s over.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\">He was like that in person, too.  We were having lunch once when I asked him about a hole-in-one he&#8217;d just made.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\">\u201cWell, it&#8217;s funnnnnny,\u201d he said in that voice you&#8217;d never forget.  \u201cI was playing with a guy who&#8217;d make a cup of cohhhhhfee nervous and I wasn&#8217;t exactly having a ticker-tape day.  Well, it soooooounded like I hit it with the Sunday paper.  But as it happens, I&#8217;d the wrooooong chosen club, and \u2014 looooo and behoooold \u2014 the ball rolls straight up into the cup!  Thus, disproving the oooooold adage: Two wrongs sometimes <i>do<\/i> make a right.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\">Scully was born to do this.  When he was a boy in the Bronx, his family had a big radio that perched on top of four legs.  He&#8217;d take a pillow, a glass of milk and some crackers, lie under it, and listen to football games.  His favorite part was in a big moment when the announcer would stop talking and he could hear the roar of the crowd.  \u201cThat, to me, was thrilling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\">Scully&#8217;s dulcet voice \u2014 and his dulcet silences \u2014 are woven through the history of American sports.  He called Hank Aaron&#8217;s 715th home run (\u201cA Black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South,\u201d he said), San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Dwight Clark&#8217;s fingertip catch against the Cowboys in the 1981 NFC championship game (\u201cIt&#8217;s a maaaaadhouse) in Candlestick!\u201d), Kirk Gibson&#8217;s shocking pinch-hit World Series homer (\u201cAnd, look who&#8217;s coming up!\u201d).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\">what a <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mlbnetwork\/status\/1554680598505062400?s=27&amp;t=IGh0-XfOboZEXbL33z9CRw\" target=\"_blank\">life<\/a> he lived.  It wasn&#8217;t perfect, of course.  Nobody&#8217;s is.  His first wife died at age 35 in 1972, from an accidental prescription drug overdose.  A son died a helicopter crash in 1994. His beloved Sandra, his wife, of 47 years, said in from Lou Gehrig&#8217;s disease (ALS) and died last year.  He&#8217;d been fading ever since.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\">The last out comes for everybody.  Scully understood that.  Once in the 1990s, in listing that night&#8217;s injury report, he said, \u201cAndre Dawson has a bruised knee and is listed as day-to-day\u201d \u2014 pregnant pause \u2014 \u201caren&#8217;t we all?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\">Vin Scully was loved in LA like nobody who came before him.  The Los Angeles Times once did a Final Four-style tournament bracket called \u201cThe Biggest LA Sports Icon.\u201d  The final came down to Vin Scully vs.  Magic Johnson.  Vin won in a landslide.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\">It hurts knowing I&#8217;ll never get to hear the greatest announcer who ever lived tell another story or turn a drowsy 6-1 game into pure theater.  So I&#8217;ll do now what Vin taught me to do: Be quiet and let the crowd roar.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<section class=\"b bt bc-offblack dn-ns hide-for-print\" data-testid=\"mostRead\" subscriptions-section=\"content\"\/><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Comment on this story Comment Schools sometimes ask me to come talk about sportswriting. When I do, I always get up, put some text on a big screen and say, \u201cSee if you can guess who wrote it. It&#8217;s about Sandy Koufax&#8217;s epic perfect game in 1965.\u201d On the screen, it says: You can almost &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/opinion-vin-scully-made-los-angeles-baseball-fans-bring-radios-to-the-stands\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Opinion |  Vin Scully made Los Angeles baseball fans bring radios to the stands<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":26662,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/why-jordan-peeles-nope-became-the-first-horror-movie-shot-with-imax-cameras\/","url_meta":{"origin":35462,"position":0},"title":"Why Jordan Peele&#8217;s &#8216;Nope&#8217; Became the First Horror Movie Shot With Imax Cameras","date":"July 27, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"When director Jordan Peele was in discussions about his box office hit \u201cNope,\u201d he knew one thing: He wanted the movie to be a vast spectacle. 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