Dodgertown ‘heaven’ to Vin Scully, like his calls were to sports fans’ ears | Opinion

I’d long heard how much legendary sports broadcaster Vin Scully loved Dodgertown in Vero Beach.

Then I read comments Scully made in March 1979, 10 years before tear-jerking lines about heaven between father and son in the movie “Field of Dreams.” Scully’s words were especially poignant after his death Tuesday at age 94.

“If this isn’t heaven, I can’t wait to see what it is,” Scully said of Dodgertown, according to Curt Smith’s 2009 book, “Pull up a chair: the Vin Scully story.”

Scully made an impact on Vero Beach fans for more than 50 years before the Dodgers moved their spring training complex to Arizona in 2008.

On Wednesday, I headed over to what’s now the Jackie Robinson Training Complex, operated by Major League Baseball. There, just north of the intersection of Vin Scully Way and Don Sutton Court — two of  numerous streets named after Dodgers in the National Baseball Hall of Fame — boys 13 to 15 years old from Hawaii and New Orleans played each other in a tournament MLB held for its Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities teams.

I ran into Walter Robinson, who was watching his son play, and told him I was writing about Scully.

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Vin Scully, then a broadcaster for the Los Angeles Dodgers for 33 years, was honored with a street sign March 14, 1982, at Dodgertown in Vero Beach after his election into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Others at the dedication included Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella, managers Tom Lasorda and Walter Alston, and Peter O’Malley, the Dodgers president.

Scully remembered by youngsters?

“Probably not one of these kids know who Scully was,” Robinson said.

He might have been right. After all, Scully retired in 2016, when the oldest players were only 9. In later years, Scully did radio, unlike in my youth, when he broadcast the World Series, the Super Bowl and golf on TV.

As a Mets fan, my favorite Scully memory is the 1986 World Series, when Mookie Wilson hit a grounder through Bill Buckner’s legs. Scully’s descriptions, then silence, are priceless.

Thankfully, YouTube has numerous compilations of Scully’s greatest calls and story telling.

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Story continues

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While I rarely listened to Scully broadcast Dodgers games on Vero Beach’s WTTB radio, I enjoyed late-night road trips listening to games on Sirius radio. Hearing one man tell stories and methodically describe baseball action was the perfect recipe for staying awake.

Jim Kaat, one of baseball’s newest hall of famers, is a Stuart resident and longtime broadcaster who pitched for 25 years. He met Scully almost six decades ago.

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“He was the gold standard for radio play-by-play announcers,” said Kaat, who, with the Minnesota Twins, started three games in the 1965 World Series. The Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax, a Vero Beach resident, tossed a shutout in Game 7 against Kaat for the win.

“I have done television, so what Vin did was different than what we try to do on TV,” Kaat said in an email. “He painted the picture for the listener.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a play-by-play announcer imitating Vin when recalling one of his signature calls. “I doubt there will ever be another like him.”

In his book, Smith described the Dodgertown Scully loved.

“Azalea, jade practice fields and roofless dugouts at Holman Stadium … a lit, village green Capra celluloid,” Smith wrote, noting Scully said the openness was team owner Walter O’Malley’s idea, “so folks’d feel near their guys.”

Unfortunately, I never got to meet Scully.

Peter O’Malley, 84, the former Dodgers owner, knew him for decades.

“There is no single other place in the world that holds more memories for me than Vero Beach,” O’Malley said, quoting Scully.

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Inauspicious start at Dodgertown

While O’Malley started coming to Vero Beach with his parents when Dodgertown opened in 1948, Scully came two years later.

The Dodgers and a Brooklyn TV station gave Scully a one-month option during spring training that year, Smith wrote. While players stayed in spartan former Navy barracks, Scully roomed with the Western Union operator in a two-cot bedroom next to his office.

Scully didn’t get much sleep, Smith said, because his roommate snored. But things could have been worse.

“At the end of the month, they might have left me in the Everglades,” Scully joked.

His most vivid memory of Dodgertown occurred in those early years, according to Rody Johnson’s 2008 book, “The Rise and Fall of Dodgertown.”

“I noticed excitement in the lobby one day,” Scully said. “Everyone was gathered in a circle. There was loud shouting and cheering. I squeezed through to see what was happening.

“There on the floor was Chuck Connors (a first baseman, and future TV star) wrestling with Branch Rickey Jr. (son of the general manager).”

Scully wasn’t the kind of gentleman to be grappling on Dodgertown’s floor.

“What you saw (on TV) is what you got,” said Vero Beach restaurateur Bobby McCarthy, who met Scully, a patron, in spring training 1981. “You couldn’t meet a better gentleman.”

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Laurence Reisman

An avid baseball fan and future independent baseball team owner, McCarthy admired Scully’s broadcasting skills.

“He wrote the book,” McCarthy said. He was all work; he took his job very seriously.”

He also took being a gentleman seriously — at least based on many tributes I’ve read, including one from Ruth Ruiz, a former publicist for the Dodgers and Historic Dodgertown.

“I imagine St. Peter at the Pearly Gates saying, ‘And look who’s coming up!’ ” she wrote on her Facebook page, referencing Scully’s famous call before the improbable home run Kirk Gibson hit in the 1988 World Series.

“Every tribute we’re reading is 100% true, because Vin was 1,000% genuine.”

Rest in peace, Mr. Scully.

This column reflects the opinion of Laurence Reisman. Contact him via email at larry.reisman@tcpalm.com, phone at 772-978-2223, Facebook.com/larryreisman or Twitter @LaurenceReisman

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Dodgertown ‘heaven’ to Vin Scully; his calls heaven to fans | Opinion