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Home , 1974 World Series, Carl Erskine, Charley Steiner, Connie Desmond, Red Barber, Vin Scully

The Greatest of All Time VIN APPRECIATION DAY Personal memories of from those who would see him regularly

HEIR (AND HAIR) APPARENT By Carl Erskine

he very first memory I have of mate in , Vin Scully is the day he joined the but the connection that Dodgers. was made with the T Dodgers and Califor- I had been in the big leagues a couple years in 1950. , who was nia was Vin Scully. one of our fine broadcasters, became ill, and they brought this red-headed young- ster from (well, he seemed like a youngster — even though I probably wasn’t much older than Vin). Our lead announcer was , and when I saw Vin with Red, I said, “Ha, he looks like a pup right out of Red Barber!” It seemed like the old guard and the new guard were kind of related in a way be-

cause they were red-headed. But there was GETTY IMAGES so much more to Vin than his hair, and I’m humbled to have spent my Dodger career He’s not only a great professional and alongside him. skillful in the way he describes the game, I spent a lot of time with Vin during my he’s also a class act. He leads a great life- playing days. We traveled by train in those style, and he’s had an impact on so many early years and waited a lot in the stations. people without even knowing it. I do be- To kill the time, I’d ask Vin to come help me lieve he has a real sensitivity to the people pick out books at the book- that are listening, and I store. I still have four or five think that’s what has made of those books on a shelf in him great. my home today, as a good To count him as a friend memory of our friendship. and to know him all these Music is one of the things years has been one of the that brings us back to instanc- highlights of my baseball es in our lives. That’s what career. You think that some- happens with Vin’s voice for body in the booth would not people all over. When we be comfortable with some- moved from to Los body on the field, but he’s Angeles, we were all strang- the of broadcast- ers to the West Coast. With ers. He can clear the net. the exception of the super- Carl Erskine spent his en- stars — , Pee tire 12-year Major League Wee Reese and career (1948-59) with the — we were foreign to the cli- Dodgers.

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PREPARATION, KINDNESS AND COMPANIONSHIP By Jaime Jarrín

n 1958, I was working for KWKW when tive Ecuador less than three years earlier, the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to hoping to make a career here in broad- ILos Angeles. KWKW had the Spanish- casting. It was as if a young painter had language broadcast rights to the new team been introduced to Rembrandt, a young in town, and an advertising account execu- singer to Pavarotti, a young composer to tive named David Van de Walker took me Beethoven. I have been so fortunate to to the Statler Hilton Hotel have been with the best of on Wilshire Boulevard to the best and also to be able meet the Dodgers’ owner, to call him my friend. Walter O’Malley. In the early years, he was There in O’Malley’s office so kind to me. He knew I was also a slender, sharply- was very young. He knew I dressed, red-haired gentle- was very green. man. I had no idea then René Cárdenas and Vin doesn’t like to give Jaime Jarrín how much Vin Scully would advice but, in my case, he mean to my career and my life over so would always say, “Jaime, it doesn’t matter many years ahead. how many games you have done — a hun- I was not even 23 years old and had dred, a thousand, five thousand — you have come to the United States from my na- to be ready. You have to do your home-

52 DODGER INSIDER 2016 work. You have to be prepared.” And I have done that, trying to follow his advice. I could never copy him, because nobody could ever copy him. But I tried to model myself after him. In baseball, we spend so much time on the road. Vin reached out to me to make that experience so much easier. I remember going to San Francisco. The team bus would be waiting to take us to the ballpark, but Vin would rent a car and he would ask me to join him and Jerry in 1988, Vin was one of to donate Doggett. Just think, me having a future to the charitable foundation we estab- Hall of Famer as my driver. On days off lished at the suggestion of on the road, the phone in my hotel room in Jimmy’s name. Vin was so generous. would ring and it would be Vin — “How And I can thank Vin for playing a big about dinner, Jaime? Meet you in the lob- part in the greatest honor of my career — by at 7 p.m.” receiving the Ford C. Frick Award and in- Very often, at his request, our traveling duction into the broadcasting wing of the secretary would get a conference room at Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998. The initia- the hotel and would invite me to join him, tive came from , but I am sure Billy DeLury and former coaches Dave Jack talked to Vin and he really helped. Wallace and Joey Amalfitano for a glass of Vin told me, “Jaime, the Hall of Fame is wine and cheese and to tell stories and ex- something very unique. It is not only for change views on — oh, everything. Those you. It’s for your family.” are the sessions I treasure the most and I hope his retirement is as blessed as missed in recent years as Vin traveled less. I have been to have him as my mentor, We also shared tragedy. Both Vin and I friend and guide all these years. lost sons at very young ages. When my son Jaime Jarrín has broadcast games for Jimmy died at age 29 of a brain aneurysm the Dodgers since 1959.

2016 DODGER INSIDER 53 The Greatest of All Time CHILDHOOD HERO COME TO LIFE By

t was 1956. I was 7, learning how to play stick, stoop, punch, soft and baseball, Ia crash course into what turned out to be life’s path. The previous fall, the Dodgers had fi- nally won the from the hated Yankees. Grownups in my neighborhood were crying tears of joy. As a 7-year-old, I thought grownups weren’t supposed to cry. peccably poetic timing and his voice set That was, as little kids, our job, after falling him apart from all of us who are fortunate off our Schwinns. It didn’t make any sense. enough to share the same profession. We So, there had to be something to this are reporters sprinting to keep up with the baseball thing. But I wasn’t quite sure pace and story line of a game. Vin, on the what, until I was introduced to the Brook- other hand is a poet, a graceful bard, who lyn Dodgers on the radio. just happens to be a member It was precisely this model of our (and your) family. We seen here that was centered chase the game. The game in the middle of my mom’s comes to him. kitchen. The radio always The past 12 years (a quar- seemed so much larger than ter of my career), I have been the little kitchen in which it beyond fortunate to have ful- comfortably sat. And more times than not, filled a longshot of a career dream. But it I sat next to it. Listening. has exceeded any and all expectations. For Listening to the crowd. The crack of the all these years, before every game we would bat. Vendors selling programs, peanuts, have dinner. First, there were four of us. Vin, popcorn, Cracker Jack. Off in the distance, , Billy DeLury and me. Billy the occasional bellow of the umpire’s passed away a couple of years ago. So now called strike. And then, the voice, that was it’s down to Vin, Mo and me. Just the three the umbrella of this wondrous newfound of us. The guy, whose voice grabbed me as experience. I didn’t know whose voice it a child and never let go, is now asking me if was, but at 7, I instantly knew what that I can pass the butter or the salt. voice was — how it grabbed me — and Sixty-seven years. His first year broad- where I hoped it might someday take me. casting for the Dodgers, was my first And damned if it didn’t. year, period. And for the past half-centu- All I ever wanted to be when I grew ry, at least, he has been the best who has up was to be the Dodgers ever done it. He is the Babe Ruth of my announcer. Never had a profession. All the plan B. I had no desire to while passing him replace Vin because even the salt, I have also 60 years ago, I knew that been playing pepper was an impossible task. with the Babe. It still is. And always Charley Steiner has will be. The intellect, been a Dodger broad- vocabulary, memory, im- caster since 2005.

2016 DODGER INSIDER 55 The Greatest of All Time MICHELANGELO, BEETHOVEN AND VIN By Steve Brener

y love affair with the began because of one Mvoice as I was growing up in the San Fernando Valley. After a day of school and a night of homework, it was bedtime. I made sure my trusty transistor radio was with me. Re- member those things? Yes, that little radio, tuned to Dodger baseball. I tucked it un- der my pillow, so I was able to listen to the voice, none other than Vin Scully, describe the Dodgers’ games. Listening to Vin was like watching Mi- chelangelo paint or Beethoven compose or Marlon Brando act or sing. He was truly the greatest artist of our time, JON SOOHOO and we were fortunate enough to enjoy 67 unanimous. None other than Vin Scully. years of this Hall of Famer and his out- Vin is so modest. He always says that standing voice. this game is not about him. It’s about the Boy, did he paint a picture team and the players. He and tell a story. And his co- believes he is just fortunate stars in the city of Los Ange- that God gave him the gift to les read like a who’s who of be able to be put in the posi- baseball. (Of course, I grew tion to describe what these up idolizing a pair of pitch- gifted athletes are able to do ers named on a diamond. And we have and .) I say been the fortunate ones to co-stars because the city of Los Angeles be able to enjoy Vin’s work. certainly recognized that Scully was star I have been truly blessed to have material. We asked the fans in 1976 to vote worked with Vin. He is a very special and for the most memorable personality in the caring person. He has never taken any- history of the franchise. The voting was thing for granted. And if anyone can take one trait from this great man, it is that he is always prepared. He does his home- work and prepares for each and every game. And it has shown for 67 years of a truly amazing career. Good luck to you Vin on your retire- ment, and thank you for what you have meant to the Dodgers and the game of baseball! Steve Brener first joined the Dodgers’ public relations department in 1970 and became the youngest director of publicity ever in .

56 DODGER INSIDER 2016 The Greatest of All Time WALKING ON AIR By Mark Langill

y mother still laughs at the notion her son M“the Dodger team his- torian” knows the Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully on a pro- fessional level at the ballpark. “Does he know you used to sit in the closet as a kid and listen to the radio?” she asks, having watched the idol-worshiping scene begin nearly five decades ago in our South Pasadena home. Correcting her descrip- tion of my novice sports den has become a running joke — “It was an office!”

check the scores from around the league — which upon further review isn’t possible during a World Series — and previewed the topics for my post- game show. Who could imagine meeting the Great Oz one day in the We both marvel at the irony of our fami- press box? It can be a dangerous propo- ly setting up shop in the Left Field Pavilion sition to place someone on a pedestal on Sunday afternoons in the mid-. If with great expectations. It turned out the I visited the souvenir stand, she dutifully broadcaster was an even greater person. wrote notes on a Styrofoam cup so I could My favorite Vin Scully memory was rid- add the plays to my scorecard. The radio ing the team charter for the first time in reception wasn’t strong under the pavil- July 1989 as a Pasadena Star-News report- ion in those days, so I needed someone to er, my initial behind-the-scenes look at the what Scully was reporting. world of Dodger baseball. Coming out of Buried in the family archives is my the restroom, I spied Scully in the front tape recording at age 9 in a high-pitched row of first class with his head buried in a voice as I pretended to be Scully calling military novel. Everyone else around him Game 7 of the , wishful was asleep. He looked up from his reading revisionist history because weeks earlier glasses and said in a cheerful whisper, “Hi in real life, L.A. had lost to the Oakland ya Mark!” In that moment, I could’ve flown Athletics in five games. One batter pops without the plane. the ball into the air and I mimic the mas- Team historian Mark Langill has been ter by announcing, “It’s playable.” I also with the Dodgers since 1994.

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