A Fan Says Good-bye to Vin Scully

Three score and seven years ago the Dodgers brought forth a new radio broadcaster, educated at Fordham University and dedicated to the proposition that baseball is America’s national pastime.

Eight years later the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles and Southern California was introduced to Vin Scully, who in turn introduced Southern California to major league baseball.

When the Dodgers got here in 1958 I was already a Pittsburgh Pirates fan. I was happy in 1959 when the Dodgers won their first World Series in L.A. but ecstatic the next year when the Pirates won the World Series.

Then came the Koufax and Drysdale years and the transistor radio. Vin Scully played the transistor radio like a fine violin, broadcasting in Technicolor and I became a Dodger fan.

Every Dodger fan has a Vin Scully story and I have mine. In 1998 I was listening to a sports talk radio show in Albuquerque. The guest challenged the audience to stump him with a Dodger trivia question. I called in and asked him what Dodger was the first to sign a $100,000 contract. He guessed Koufax and the answer is Vin Scully. I still have the Albuquerque Dukes baseball cap I won.

On Sunday afternoon the baseball world will say good-bye to Vin Scully. He will call his last game from San Francisco, home of the arch rival Giants. So grab some peanuts and Cracker Jack and enjoy the final broadcast of a humble man who has been a welcome guest in our homes for 59 seasons. He will demonstrate one more time why baseball is still America’s national pastime.

Lynn McGinnis
Glendale