Everything Will Be Alright—For Another Year, Anyway

 
Vin Scully has announced he will return to the Dodger broadcast booth for an unprecedented 61st season, most by any professional broadcaster in any sport. This is great news for LA Dodger fans, and good news for baseball fans in general.

I grew up in Southern California and was serenaded to Scully's ballgames beginning in 1965. It was an auspicious year for the home team -- Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Maury Wills, Wes Parker, and the rest of the boys of forty-five summers past -- as they defeated the Twins in the World Series; thus, it was a great way to receive my indoctrination into Dodger fandom.

As with weather and beaches and mountains, those of us who came of age in LA took much of it for granted. So it was with Vin Scully's soothing voice and melodic demeanor behind the mike. Vin didn't just call a baseball game; he told a tale, weaved a story, brought to the listener the fragrant scent of a thousand ballgames past and thousands of miles away right into your mind's eye as if you had been there in person. No other broadcaster I've heard has been as adept at his craft as Vinny, as he is known to Dodger fans.

Through fires and quakes and riots, he has been there to assure us that everything somehow will be alright. And for at least one more year, now I know it will be.