Vin Scully

Vin Scully showed up unprepared for an assignment once in his life -- and Dodgers fans were the better for it. It was 60 years ago this November, and Scully was a 21-year-old greenhorn, recently graduated from Fordham, new to the announcing business and eager to leave his mark. The young New Yorker had been tapped by Red Barber to make his professional play-by-play debut at a Maryland-Boston University football game on Nov. 12, 1949, at Fenway Park.

While the Dodgers' acquisition of a top starting pitcher before the trading deadline remains woefully uncertain, one thing has become wonderfully clear. They just got their ace. Vin Scully, thought to be retiring this winter after 60 seasons, said this week he is planning on coming back for one more summer. Scully, 81, said if he continues to feel well he will work past his landmark year and retire after the 2010 season.

Luck is with us in Los Angeles, for we get to hear verbal nuggets such as this one from the Dodgers' home opener Monday, courtesy of broadcaster Vin Scully, who is telling us about Travis Ishikawa of the Giants. Listen. "Ishikawa, last year he had a stretch where runners were in scoring position with less than two outs and he went seven for 11. That got everybody's attention.

Before the Internet, before cable television or even color TV, there was radio. Back then, we sat by the speakers and listened to radio announcers make pictures with words. Using just a little bit of imagination, we could actually see the things they were describing to us. Vin Scully is one of those master storytellers. He came of age in Brooklyn, N.Y., in the era before television took over sports coverage. In 1958, he moved to Los Angeles. Ever since, he's been telling us all about the adventures, triumphs and defeats of that band of blue-capped men known as the Dodgers.

Vin Scully recently watched the MLB Network replay of the perfect game pitched by Don Larsen for the New York Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1956 World Series. He watched and he listened. He listened to Mel Allen call the first half of the game and then listened to himself, an earnest and eager 28-year-old, call the second half. What did Scully notice about that broadcast? People have asked that a lot since the rebroadcast was aired Jan. 1 on the new MLB Network.

In the summer of 1974, Eric Neel was a 6-year-old kid going through hard times: His parents were divorcing, and he was living with his grandfather in Los Angeles. The only thing that gave him solace was sitting on a small kitchen stool, listening to Vin Scully announcing Dodgers games. "He'd say 'Hi again, everybody, and a very pleasant good evening to you, wherever you may be,' and my life would come back on line," said Neel, now a senior writer for ESPN.