Blogging About Baseball

I know it’s been a while. I’m sorry.

Blogging About Baseball is going to be undergoing a serious transformation within the next few weeks. There’s going to be more writers, a different layout, and possibly some sponsors. With more writers, we’ll have more updates on more topics.

Blogging About Baseball is going to be bigger and better.

Dog.

Mule.

Camel.

Quarter-horse.

There, I think that about describes it.

My uniform has done that thing that happens to really fat people when they sit on their sofas for too long. It’s melted into my skin; it’s become a part of me. This one hour break is the first sunshine I’ve seen since the double-double began, and my skin is not liking it. I need somewhere dark that smells like food to feel right again.

I’m going to get back to posting tomorrow morning. In the next week or so, I am going to write blogs about baseball players using Twitter, a review of Sam Walker’s Fantasyland, what’s going on with Dice-K, and hopefully the interview with Marlin’s 4th round pick Dan Mahoney. The little bugger has since decided to stop emailing me back, but I’m confident he’ll have a change of heart and the interview will roll sometime soon.

Until then, enjoy!

In a baseball fan’s world, the first time you hear Dodger’s announcer Vin Scully is comparable to the first time you heard about J.F.K.’s assassination or the attacks of 9/11.

You remember where you were when you first heard it and chances are, your life changed.

It’s not meant to be an offensive comparison, but rather one that puts Scully’s impact on baseball into focus.

Vin Scully is much more than just an announcer for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He is the face of the Dodger’s franchise, even though few people outside of California could tell you what he looks like. He is the American Dream, someone who knew what he wanted, worked towards it, and hasn’t stopped working towards it for 60 years. He is someone who looks for no recognition or praise, but because of his indeterminable drive, does nothing but gravitate towards it.

He is the face of baseball, preserving the hard work, honesty, integrity, and beauty of a flawed game.

Scully doesn’t announce, he paints. Announcers sway, announcers yell, announcers do play-by-play. Scully uses smooth strokes to create a picture of a game that is unfolding before your eyes. Everything flows seemlessly, and if it won’t, Scully’s not afraid to be silent for a moment.

Every game is an investment of a large part of himself. When he finishes a game, you can tangibly feel the energy he’s expelled. The decades of on-the-job experience, the countless hours of research, it’s taken something out of him. And you can feel it. You can really feel it.

The first time I felt it wasn’t through a transistor radio or at my grandmother’s house watching NBC’s Monday Night Baseball, like so many others.

It was last year.

I was living and working in Newport, Rhode Island. I had finally splurged and got the MLB Extra Innings package, but I had barely been able to watch it because of work. On a night off, I started changing the channel before I settled on the Dodgers versus Giants.

I’d hear of Scully before, but truthfully I had no idea what all the hubbub was about. Within moments, I knew.

The calmness. The I’m-not-going-to-ram-this-down-your-ears, matter-of-factness. The knowledge. The knowledge is where he draws you in; from the tendencies of the umpires behind the plate to the nuances of where Bengie Molina grew up, Scully knows something about everything.

I watched almost every Dodgers game for the rest of the season. My friends didn’t understand it. They just thought he was boring.

I dread the day Vin Scully retires, but I don’t think he ever will.

He will be like Brett Favre. He will be like Lance Armstrong. He’ll be Gordie Howe and Michael Jordan. He’ll keep coming back; it’s in his blood and something won’t feel right without it.

Scully will be more like Ted Radcliffe than any of those guys. Look him up. Scully would.