Vin Scully Reminded Us That If Baseball Is Good, So Is Everything Else

Brady Langmann
·5 min read
Vin Scully Reminded Us That If Baseball Is Good, So Is Everything Else
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I don't remember much from the beginning of the pandemic—other than wake up, work, eat, repeat. I didn't take comfort in The Sopranos, or whatever the hell else we did. (Tiger King? Remember that?) But there was one story I read, truly the only one, that gave me comfort. I still think of it now.

For a piece published in the Los Angeles Times on March 22, 2020 (eek!), Bill Plaschke did something beautiful. Plaschke, already a great to me, faithfully watching Around the Horn since the days I had math homework, called another legend: Vin Scully. The Hall of Fame broadcaster whose iconic voice soundtracked exactly 67 summers of Dodgers baseball had been retired for a few years at that point. Plaschke, as he put it, needed"a sound of spring," staring down the certainty of a spring with pin-drop quiet stadiums. I'll never forget the simplicity of what Scully told the longtime columnist.

“From depths of depression we fought our way through World War II, and if we can do that, we can certainly fight through this," Scully said. "I remember how happy and relieved and thrilled everybody was … when they signed the treaty with Japan, and the country just danced from one way or another. It’s the life of the world, the ups and downs, this is a down, we’re going to have to realistically accept it at what it is and we’ll get out of it, that’s all there is to it, we will definitely get out of it.”

On Tuesday, Scully passed away at his Los Angeles home at the age of 94. No cause of death was provided. Scully's legend as the longest-tenured broadcaster with a single team in the history of professional sports outsizes any amount of words that can be written about him. The man offered his singular voice, whip-smart baseball IQ, and gift for storytelling over a period of time that saw Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Don Sutton, Mike Piazza, and Clayton Kershaw all take the field in front of him. We're left with what he reminded us during every bit of those 67 summers, and then some—that if there's baseball, then things can be good. And if things aren't very good, then we'll find a way to make it all right.

“If baseball starts up, we’ve got this thing beat and we can go about our lives,” Scully said to Plaschke. “Baseball is not a bad thermometer, when baseball begins, whenever that is, that will be a sure sign that the country is slowly getting back on its feet.”

Here's how the sports world is memorializing Scully and the legacy he left behind.

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