Vinny’s View

This week I was with a friend in LA for some music concerts.  We were free during the day on Tuesday, and I booked a tour of Dodger Stadium.  It turned out we were the only two people on the 90-minute tour. 

We came to the broadcaster’s booth and the guide said I could sit in an announcer’s chair, which I did.  I looked out at the empty field and quiet stadium.  I began thinking of Vin Scully, the Dodger broadcaster who had seen so much from this perspective.  It wasn’t any particular moment that came to mind, but more a sense of his spirit — how he saw the world.

Vin Scully began his broadcasting career in Brooklyn in 1950.  By the time the team came to Los Angeles in 1958, transistor radios were common and his voice was heard everywhere.  I began listening to him when I was 6 years old and followed him faithfully for 58 years.

If I could add up all the hours in my life I heard his voice, I’m sure it would be a greater sum than the hours I’ve listened to any other person outside my family.  But it wasn’t the information he conveyed that was so compelling. 

In all those years I never heard him say a disparaging word about anyone.  What I did hear was an endless stream of stories about each player’s background — one guy growing up in a Mississippi mill town and what inspired him, or how another guy had made it to the big leagues because his mother always believed in him.  It didn’t matter whether the person he was describing was a Dodger or on the other team — everyone has a story to their life, and when we know their story, we want to see them do well.

He gained that knowledge not by doing internet searches, but by showing up early for the games.  He would mingle with the players, listening carefully to them, and getting to know those he had not yet met.  They learned to respect and trust him. That took time. He made the time.

These days most games involve a team of broadcasters who discuss and debate what is going on between themselves while we listen in. Vin Scully preferred to work alone.  He wanted to have a genuine conversation between himself and each one of us listening and that’s what it felt like.

Vin never talked about his private life. But his first wife had died suddenly when she was 35, leaving him a single dad.  He remarried three years later and took on the hard work of raising a blended family. Later, one of his sons died in a helicopter crash.  He later said it was his strong Catholic faith and his willingness to stop asking “Why?” that got him through it all.  He didn’t have all the answers, but he didn’t have to.

Scully was honored in a pre-game ceremony by the Dodgers on September 23, 2017.  My youngest daughter, her boyfriend, and I attended that game.  Speakers included Sandy Koufax, Clayton Kershaw, and Kevin Costner. I remember him paying tribute to his wife, then leaning out of the broadcast booth, opening his arms wide, and serenading us with “You Are The Wind Beneath My Wings.” He was 88.

In our current culture, much attention is given to quick and simplistic judgments about other people.  Vin Scully was the great counterexample to that.  I believe Vinny’s life was about reverence. Reverence for the game, to be sure.  But also reverence for all those whom the game brings together.  It was all about loving and honoring one another in the midst of our ups and downs, our successes and failures.  He showed us how to practice respect for everyone.  Sitting quietly in that broadcaster’s chair this week, I was reminded once again of who Vin Scully was, what he represented, and why we need to always remember his example.