Advertisement

Vin Scully is OK, but we do have one request

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The heart stops. That’s the first reaction. The please-don’t-let-it-be-true fear.

Vin Scully hospitalized.

The initial reports were so cryptic, they encompassed all possibilities. A sense of dread seemed unavoidable.

Thankfully he is fine. Dodgers Vice President of Communications Josh Rawitch said he simply fell, bumped his head and was taken to the hospital for precautionary reasons.

Advertisement

But if you heard only the first reports or saw this morning’s early edition of the Los Angeles Times, the news was only that he was hospitalized with a quick attribution to a family spokesman that he was going to be all right.

OK, OK, you want to believe that. Want to feel that Vin really will be fine.

Yet he’s 82 and the years bring hard realities. Deep fears impossible to ignore.

Because Vin Scully is not just another well-respected broadcaster. Not just a Hall of Fame voice.

He is a civic treasure. He is immediate family. He is comforting and insightful and wise and entertaining, and just occasionally, a tad devilish. He is baseball’s warm breeze, Southern California’s overstuffed easy chair. Vin Scully makes freeway traffic disappear.

He remains so vibrant, so completely alert, that it is easy to think he’s 52. And then comes word he’s hospitalized, and suddenly there’s a touchstone to cold facts of time that feel jarring.

Vin has touched generations the way most can never dream of doing, Vin included. Baby Boomers have grown up with Vin. From childhood, to awkward teenage years, to early adulthood to middle age, Vin has been unspoken reassurance, a single constant.

As a way of thanks, he is asked only to outlive us all.

--Steve Dilbeck

Advertisement