Sitting in a sports bar, I just looked up at the TV and saw that the Dodgers are getting a shellacking, 7-1 at the hands of the Padres. (yes, I happened to bring my laptop to a sports bar - you'd expect something different from a blogger?)
Anyway, I looked up and happened to glance at Vin Scully. Wow.
For the longest time, I'd see Vin Scully, and I'd think: "He looks exactly the same as he did twenty years ago." He's ageless. Like the jokes they used to make about Dick Clark. Dick Clark before, a couple of years ago, he missed Rockin' New Year's Eve with some hip injury or whatever it was that old people get. Those same "he never grows old" Dick Clark jokes applied to Vin Scully. Or did. Dick got old.
So did Vin.
I looked up and Vin - "Old Red" he'd say he used to call his mentor Red Barber -- Vin was still red. It didn't look horribly bottled or anything. I mean, the guy has to be 80. But he was all red. And, for the first time, he looked old.
I say this in a respectful way.
The way you think when you realize that something that you grew up with, a part of your childhood and assumed would just always be there, is there. Vin has always been there, telling me a yarn, just me and him, telling me how the game was going, as if we were talking one-on-one at my porch.
I used to feel this way about Chick Hearn. Not that he was more treasured to me. It's just that he aged first. There were whispers, and little jokes that he'd get tongue-tied or mix up players' names. But hell, many NBA players shave their heads, and from "high up on the Western sideline" it's hard to tell one bald head from another.
Then Chick died. Fell off a ladder.
I looked up and Vin looked old. And red. Vin had become the mentor, but who was he mentoring? Who is he mentoring? No one? Or everyone?
He's the avuncular friend who's been there, teaching us how to tell a story, talking to us, not at us. And with the lines on the face, the bags under the eyes, he seems to be entering his twilight.
I don't know how he "sounds," as I haven't followed the Dodgers that closely since their last strike (I was the only person who said during the strike, "that's it! as a fan, I'm going on strike and not returning!" and.. meant it). I don't know if he's lost a step. Or a syllable. I don't know if he mixes up players the way Chick did.
I just know that I savor every moment that I can look up and see the Old Redhead there on the screen at the sports bar, in the checkered sports coat, comforting me that I'm not that old, since my friend Vin Scully has always been there, and, indeed, is still there.
Long live Vin Scully.
Recent Comments