You know how your brain makes connections autonomously and you suddenly find yourself thinking about something you weren't planning to think about? This is one of those connections:
The other day I suddenly came to the realization that Vin Scully was doing the Brooklyn Dodgers play-by-play the first time I listened to a baseball game on the radio or watched one on channel 9 in NY. When I graduated from college, Vin Scully was doing Dodgers play-by-play. When I met SWMBO, Vin Scully was doing play-by-play for the Dodgers. Now I am retired and Vin Scully is doing Dodgers play-by-play (albeit on a much-reduced schedule). I suspect that when I die, Vin Scully will do the eulogy, then catch a plane so that he gets to the ball park in time to do the Dodgers play-by-play that day.
Another guy who has been a constant in my life as a sports fan, though for 7 fewer years than Vin Scully, is Ralph Kiner. I don't remember him as a player, but I have had the pleasure of listening to him and his malaprops since he began calling NY Mets games in 1962. Even though I still rooted for the Dodgers in those years, I followed the Mets because Shea Stadium squatted in the swamps of Flushing, Queens just a few miles from where I grew up. In recent years Ralph has cut back his appearances at the microphone drastically, and his speech began to seem labored. But, more recently, he seems sharper than he has in a long time. His speech is not as slow (Better meds, Ralph? Where can I get some?), but he makes sense and he is funny (two things that never applied to me). I am very happy to listen to him when he is working a broadcast.
Do any of you have sports constants behind the microphone on whose presence you count without even realizing it? Are there any players who've been around as long as you've been a fan, and whose retirement you dread?
The other day I suddenly came to the realization that Vin Scully was doing the Brooklyn Dodgers play-by-play the first time I listened to a baseball game on the radio or watched one on channel 9 in NY. When I graduated from college, Vin Scully was doing Dodgers play-by-play. When I met SWMBO, Vin Scully was doing play-by-play for the Dodgers. Now I am retired and Vin Scully is doing Dodgers play-by-play (albeit on a much-reduced schedule). I suspect that when I die, Vin Scully will do the eulogy, then catch a plane so that he gets to the ball park in time to do the Dodgers play-by-play that day.
Another guy who has been a constant in my life as a sports fan, though for 7 fewer years than Vin Scully, is Ralph Kiner. I don't remember him as a player, but I have had the pleasure of listening to him and his malaprops since he began calling NY Mets games in 1962. Even though I still rooted for the Dodgers in those years, I followed the Mets because Shea Stadium squatted in the swamps of Flushing, Queens just a few miles from where I grew up. In recent years Ralph has cut back his appearances at the microphone drastically, and his speech began to seem labored. But, more recently, he seems sharper than he has in a long time. His speech is not as slow (Better meds, Ralph? Where can I get some?), but he makes sense and he is funny (two things that never applied to me). I am very happy to listen to him when he is working a broadcast.
Do any of you have sports constants behind the microphone on whose presence you count without even realizing it? Are there any players who've been around as long as you've been a fan, and whose retirement you dread?
