A favorite memory from the 2014 season

I'll warn you all now: this blog post has nothing to do with the Nationals. Hope you'll still be able to go on with your day. Yesterday, the legendary Vin Scully turned 87. When I turn 87, I'll probably be struggling to make my way from my bed to the shuffleboard court out behind my retirement facility. Scully is 87 and still going strong as the play-by-play voice of the Dodgers. Next year, he'll enter his 66th year broadcasting Dodgers games. And in Scully's 65th year, I got to meet him and chat with him for about 15 minutes, time that I won't forget anytime soon. When the Nationals traveled to Los Angeles to play the Dodgers this September, I got to cross yet another stadium off my ballpark bucket list. I'd never been to Dodger Stadium before, never got to see Chavez Ravine in person and start at the top of the stadium on my way in before making the trek down to the lower levels. Before the second game of the three-game set between the Nats and Dodgers, I was having "lunch" (that's what they call it in baseball broadcasting, even though it takes place at around 5:30 p.m.) with Bob Carpenter, F.P. Santangelo and a few guys on our crew. One of the local L.A. guys asked me who my broadcasting idols were growing up, and I told him that while I didn't have many, I always really looked up to Scully and treasured the times I got to hear him call a game. He immediately hopped up, walked away and then came back a couple of minutes later with some news - I'd be able to meet Scully before the final game of the series, if I wanted. Uh, yes, please. The next day, about an hour and a half before game time, I popped into Scully's booth, where I met Boyd Robertson, who is Scully's producer/stage manager/jack of all trades. Robertson couldn't have been nicer, and he showed me the system that he has set up with Scully and how they communicate during a broadcast, with Robertson and the stats guy on the broadcast team passing Vin various notes that he can use on-air. After a few minutes of just chatting with Robertson, he gave me a couple tips for how I should act when Scully arrived. "Don't call him Mr. Scully," Robertson said. "He hates that. Call him Vin." Scully eventually made it into his booth. You know how when you meet someone who you've seen in movies or on TV, they sometimes sound far different in person than in their show or film? Well, that wasn't the case at all with Scully. He sounded exactly the same in person as he does on-air, saying, "Nice to meet you, Dan," in that typical Scully drawl. We talked about the ballclubs that we cover, Scully marveling at how talented Bryce Harper is and me asking what Yasiel Puig is like off the field. We discussed how Scully got his start in broadcasting in D.C., working at WTOP doing a little on-air work before eventually getting tabbed to be the voice of the Dodgers in 1950. Scully told me that he's never been back to D.C. since leaving WTOP, and that he hoped that the Nats and Dodgers would meet in the postseason, so that he could make a work trip back across the country and see the District again. We discussed ball and TV, and I loved every second of it. I was amazed at how Scully could just casually drop a line in conversation that seemed like it would take minutes to plan out in advance. He called Mike Trout a "Mack truck that moves like a Lamborghini," which I thought was just a tremendous analogy. I'm not big on autographs, but I brought a baseball that I asked Scully to sign, and he did so carefully, making sure that his cursive signature could be read clearly. He asked where on the ball I wanted him to sign, and when I told him the sweet spot, he looked up at me with a confused look on his face. "Don't you want to save that spot for Matt Williams or one of the players?" he asked. No, I told him nicely. Scully's signature was the only one I wanted on that ball.