Tuesday, August 26, 2008

The Text from Vin Scully's Coliseum Plaque

VIN SCULLY

Vin Scully is the enduring voice of summer in Los Angeles.

Scully joined the Dodgers as a play-by-play announcer in 1950, when he was 22. In 1958, he moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles with the team. Those first four seasons in California, the Dodgers' home was the Coliseum, and Scully was there for all of them, serving as our eyes and ears, bringing a team into our homes and hearts. His words embroidered the Dodgers irrevocably into the fabric of Los Angeles.

Scully's tenure with the Dodgers is the longest of any broadcaster with a single club in professional sports history. On television or radio he has called 28 World Series, more than any broadcaster. He was inducted into the broadcasters' wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982, the Radio Hall of Fame in 1996, voted Broadcaster of the Century by the American Sportscasters Association in 2000, and named baseball's all-time best broadcaster in 2005.

For more than a half century, Vin Scully has bridged the cultural and generational divide. His voice has connected us to each other, young to old, black to white, Latino to Asian. His voice is our common thread.

The games are ephemeral, the scores are forgotten, the players come and go, but the emotions endure, and the contributions of Vincent Edward Scully to Los Angeles will last forever.

That's how I read it from a picture on Dodgers Magazine, anyway. Scully was actually inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1995. Is there much of a market for ceremonial plaque text fact-checkers (say that five times fast)?

photo by Branimir Kvartuc/AP

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