Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in
by Mick Rhodes | editor@claremont-courier.com
In late summer 1992 I was a couple weeks into my first full-time journalism gig at the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza in Incline Village, Nevada, and it wasn’t going well.
Not only was it my first full-time newspaper job, but it was also my first time away from home. On top of being homesick, I was also terrible at my job, and was working around the clock to get up to speed before my editor sent me packing. Teetering between failure and barely hanging on, I was lonely and exhausted.
Driving home on Highway 89 after one of those late nights at the Bonanza offices, I was struck by a sound emanating from my AM car radio in my 1983 Subaru wagon. It’s impossible, I thought. Could it be? It was Vin Scully, that reassuring voice from home, calling a Dodgers game. I pulled over, thinking I must be hallucinating. I was 500 miles from LA. How could I be picking up a Dodgers broadcast?
Still half-believing I was losing my mind, after a moment I stopped questioning and just basked in the warmth of the greatest sports announcer of all time. Vin’s engaging cadence and resonant voice was a comfort I’d not felt in weeks. I sat for a good hour in my Subaru with the windows down, marveling at what I was hearing, and at the waxing gibbous moon glittering on Lake Tahoe.
Since this was pre-internet times, I went to bed that night half convinced I’d witnessed some sort of miracle.
Later I learned that under the right conditions, during nighttime hours AM radio signals can “travel over hundreds of miles by reflection from the ionosphere, a phenomenon called ‘skywave’ propagation,” according to the Federal Communications Commission. Back then I was clueless about the science, and just profoundly grateful for the ethereal signal from home.
Decked out in Dodger blue, a passionate fan watches intently as the action unfolds on the field. Photo/by Chavez Ravine, Unsplash
I’d grown up with the Dodgers and the great Vin Scully. My childhood was spent idolizing and trying to emulate those 1970s teams, and dreaming of my family’s sporadic trips to Dodger Stadium. I was even lucky enough to be there to watch the Dodgers beat the Yankees, 4-3, in game two of the 1978 World Series.
Baseball was bigger than life when I was young. It was everything to me. I played Little League, Pinto, Pony, and Colt ball. I was mediocre, but that didn’t stop me from dreaming of being a big leaguer. All that came to an abrupt halt when high school rolled around and it became clear I didn’t have the talent.
My playing days were over, but my love for the game persisted. I lived in South Pasadena for a while in 1991-1992 with my wife at the time and our young daughter. We were so close to Dodger Stadium we’d sometimes decide to go to a 7:05 p.m. game at 6:30 and get there by game time. Parking was cheap, and we could get field level seats for about $10. It felt like Dodger Stadium was our neighborhood hangout. We’d go to a game for about what we’d spend at the movies. It was glorious.
I drifted away from sports about 20 years ago after an unfortunate encounter with an LA sports legend left me with a very bad taste in my mouth. It was so disheartening that I stopped caring about pro sports altogether.
But the Dodgers, and baseball, remained close to my heart. I still loved the game.
I don’t think I’ve ever sat down with my kids to watch a sporting event. But this, I told them last Friday, was important. Special. Historic even. So there we were, all watching Freddie Freeman win game one of the World Series with that walk off grand slam. If you had to pick one game to watch with your kids, that was definitely the one. So fun! My kids were hooting and hollering like kids all over LA (and Japan). It was exhilarating.
The kids and I watched the whole series. After staging that miraculous comeback Wednesday night — well, three Yankee errors sure helped — and winning it all, my Pomona neighborhood exploded with pyrotechnics rivaling Fourth of July. We watched the post-game interviews and shared in the joy that seemed to emanate from the Dodgers throughout the series.
My son said, “That was a lot of fun, watching the whole series.” Gulp. Sniff. What a lovely dad moment.
Later that night I got a call from an old friend. Collin was a toddler when I met him. His family lived across the street from us in Pasadena circa 1989-1991. His two sisters and our daughter were all early elementary schoolers and quickly became inseparable. This was during my rabid Dodgers fan years, and soon Collin and I were watching games together. He took to it immediately. The kid just absolutely gobbled up baseball.
Though we moved away from that sweet little north Pasadena neighborhood, Collin and I kept in touch. I took him to his first Dodgers game when he was in elementary school. We went to a few more, the last one when he was a teenager in the early 2000s. Life happened, and we lost touch.
Then Facebook brought us back together about 10 years ago. We talked on the phone a few times, of course about how the Dodgers were doing at that moment, and our families. I did my best to mask my lack of knowledge about the team. I didn’t have the heart to let on that I hadn’t followed them in years.
A few years ago Collin called to invite me to a Dodgers game. I wish I could have had that full circle moment with him, but my kids were younger and there was some family thing happening that took precedence.
Minutes after Walker Buehler struck out Alex Verdugo Wednesday night to give the Dodgers their eighth World Series title, I got a phone call.
“Happy Dodgers World Series win to you, Collin!” I answered. “Yeah man, you too!” he said. We celebrated over the phone, 30 years after that first trip to Dodger Stadium together. “I still remember that game,” Collin said. “It was towel night.” He thanked me for turning him on to Dodgers baseball, thanked me for taking him to games and making him into a lifelong fan. I was choked up, but managed to tell him how much fun it was to have a little dude to go to games with, and that I loved him. “I love you too. Thank you,” he said.
It was a beautiful ending to a week that both brought me back into the Dodgers fold, and reminded me how much fun — and how moving — it can be to sit down with your family and root for a great team.
Maybe next year my son Everett, Collin and I can catch a game.
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In 1965 I would pick up WLS Chicago late at night in Corona Del Mar in my old 1948 Chrysler! Wolfman Jack would be broadcasting the top rock and roll hits in WLS. It was fun to pick up our “home area” stations.