Sleepless in Los Angeles

A note to those of you east of Los Angeles: that sudden cool breeze you felt on Sunday was not a Canadian cold front. That was our city exhaling.

You probably heard the news already. Vin Scully is returning in 2011 for his 62nd (!!!!) year as Dodger broadcaster.

Oh, wow, I typed that and exhaled all over again.

The release of that news was not as easy as it sounds. Indeed, waiting to hear it was akin to wondering if Sputnik I had passed over the United States without destroying the nation with nuclear weaponry.

It had unfolded so innocently.

I was driving home Saturday night from a dinner and theater date with some friends. The Dodgers had wrapped up a victory on the car radio. That's big news in itself these days. Dodger Talk co-host Josh Suchon was doing a post-game interview with Dodger hitting star-of-the-game Jay Gibbons. And the final question was...

What did Gibbons think about the fact that, on Sunday morning, Vin Scully would be making an announcement about his future?

Whaaaaaaaaaaaatttttt??!!!

I turned up the radio several decibels as if a louder noise was going to provide me with more information.

This was what we have been dreading for years. The big Dodger Blue elephant in the closet. Vin was going to finalize a finality.

This was the last year of his current contract. The man is in his early 80s. The Dodgers can't get more than two runs per game. Why wouldn't this be an ideal time for Vin Scully to retire?

Whaaaaatttttttt??!!!

It was incomprehensible. Inevitability suddenly seemed so unpredictable. I flashed back to just two weeks before. I had met Vin Scully myself. Was this the tipping point for his decision? Would I get blamed for this?

As per usual, I tuned into my Dodger ports in a storm. My former Dodger Talk co-hosts, Ken Levine and Josh Suchon, to inject some sense into the senseless. Just kidding, guys. Right? Right?

RIGHT???????

Ken and Josh were just as numb as I was. And knew nothing more than what was already reported.

Earlier that night, Vin had made an off-handed remark to a member of the press corps. He had decided what he was going to do for the future. There would be an announcement on Sunday morning. He owed it to the Dodgers to not make a comment before then.

This certainly didn't sound like Vin had renewed his Costco membership.

I was home by now and still tuned to Dodger Talk. We were all grasping at straws. From the sound of the callers, the uneasiness had spread from the Pacific Ocean all the way to Lake Tahoe. I personally subscribed to Ken Levine's hypothesis. Vin had always said that, if he was to retire, he would do it quietly. With little fanfare and certainly not a farewell tour. If Vin were to announce his retirement on August 22, there would be six weeks left of a dismal baseball season. Plenty of time for a good ole Irish wake. And a farewell tour that would rival the dozen or so that Barbra Streisand has already gone on. I liked Ken's reasoning best. That smelled right. I went to bed. Lights off.

And couldn't sleep.

My mind kept sprinting ahead to Sunday morning and the sadness that might envelop us all. I wanted to process and couldn't. Somehow, I needed to get some thoughts down that would be used to comfort me.

Lights on.

I went to my cyber psychologist. The Blogger Dashboard that provides you with this nonsense every single day.

I wrote about the unique bond that a fan has with the perfect baseball announcer. For me, there was a childhood with those special guys in the New York Met radio and TV booths. Messrs Nelson, Kiner, and Murphy. The comfort and solace and joy they gave me summer night after night. When Lindsey Nelson had scooted off on September Saturdays to do a college football game, there was a piece missing to my world and the Met broadcasts didn't sound correct.

I remembered the pain I felt when that Met triumverate was broken up. But, eventually, there was more good times. Messrs Kiner, Zabriskie, and McCarver. Wonderful broadcasts that engaged Met fans so completely. Baseball discussions that turned my own mother into a fan of the sports she had sneered at all through my youth.

I wrote about Vin and those fans who had similar relationships with him here in Los Angeles since 1958. I suddenly felt cheated that I had only had him in my world since 1997 when I moved to Los Angeles. What had I missed all those years?

But, I thought about those thirteen years when a New York baseball fan was transported to another time zone and another baseball franchise. When the Dodgers began to be more important to me and the Mets a little less. And all the nights I came home from what appeared to be an uncertain career move and immersed myself into verbal literature as essayed by baseball's poet laureate himself. Vin steered me through a lot of evenings of self doubt. By simply and expertly taking my mind off it for nine innings.

I saved it all for posterity and figured that I would run the blog postmortem today. Instead, you are getting this. By Sunday morning, we learned that Vin Scully indeed still loves this game and won't leave it for at least another year. He apologized for the hysterity that had ensued from the misquotes and missteps in the press box. A classic "whoops" just like when he told me about that ball that had gone through Bil Buckner's legs in 1986. He was sorry if he had given anybody a sleepless night.

No worries, Vin. Welcome back!

As for the missed sleep, I was able to make it up by taking a long nap at the Dodger game on Sunday afternoon.

Dinner last night: Sausage and olive pizza from Maria's Italian Kitchen.