Vin Scully Scolds the Media

Let me make this perfectly clear: I love Vin Scully. The man is awesome. Next to Jon Miller, Vin Scully is my favorite broadcaster. People say he’s lost some over the years and that he makes many more mistakes than he used to. My simple response: I’d rather have Vin Scully calling my game with a few slipups than some scrub ruining the game with horrendous commentary. Scully’s a legend, and there’s good reason why. He’s a story teller, he has a smooth delivery, he’s just excellent all around — he makes Dodger baseball enjoyable. And considering Scully’s always in such a jovial mood behind the mic, I was pretty surprised to hear this come out of his mouth as the telecast was returning from commercial for his usual “This Day in Baseball” appearance:

Normally on the telecast we talk about this day in baseball. I don’t mean to sound grumpy or grouchy, but I can’t believe what I didn’t hear. I listened to the news on the radio for about an hour and 15 minutes today, did not hear one word about what this day really means. June the 6th, 1944. Do the names Omaha, or Utah, Gold, Juno, Sword, do they mean anything? They’re the beaches at Normandy. Sure, today was D-Day — the invasion of Europe, when thousands of soldiers gave their lives so that we could be free. I’ll be darned if I saw any real publicity about it at all. Please don’t let that happen again next year, please.

Man, just the fact of seeing Vin turn on the serious card and not be his usual happy self was a shocker. But you know what? He’s right, and it’s great. This is part of what makes Vin great; he has a sense of culture and history that’s so much finer than most people, and he relates it to the telecasts. I hope next year, for Vin’s sake, people remember June 6th and its significance. I know I will, if not just to make sure I don’t let him down. Is there anything worse than having Vin Scully mad at you? I don’t think so.