My Tribute to My Unsung Hero

“Thank you, Jerry. And a very pleasant ‘Good evening’ to you wherever you may be!”

With those words, my nightly Communications 101 seminar began.

His name is Vin Scully, play-by-play announcer for the Los Angeles Dodgers. This year will mark his 61st season with the Dodgers, the longest of any broadcaster with a single club in professional sports history. It is also rumored to be his last. Which leaves me with a heart overflowing with gratitude, enormous respect, and a profound sense of personal loss.

In our last little visit together, I shared with you my utter inability to verbally communicate. “Whatever you do when you choose a career, do not go into public speaking,” so said my 10th grade drama teacher. So when God called me to talk for a living – as in giving a speech, a sermon, a message – I freaked out. I could not do it. I didn’t have the tools. I didn’t have the know-how. I didn’t have the slightest idea what to do or how to begin to learn what to do.

So I made a decision. I would find the very best communicator on the planet and study, study, study everything he or she did – this is order to learn the craft. My mentor of choice? Vin Scully.

Vinnie doesn’t just tell you what is happening on the field. He takes you there. Honestly, when Scully is behind the microphone, I can sit in my living room, close my eyes, hear his descriptions, and actually “see” the action down on the field. The Hall-of-Fame broadcaster paints portraits using words as his colors. He is the poet laureate of baseball.

On many-a-night, you could find me sitting in the top deck at Dodger Stadium, transistor radio in hand, watching the drama that is baseball unfold on the field, trying to imagine how I would describe what was happening, and then listening to the master perform his art. I’m telling you, despite the 56,000 people who jammed Dodger Stadium, it was as if I had my own, very private communications clinic going on.

My prayer then was, and my prayer today is, “God, help me to do to the Bible what Vin Scully does to a Dodger game. Not just to tell the good people what’s going on. But to take them there. To see it, hear it, smell it, touch it, taste it, experience it.”

Vin, I don’t know if you will ever read this. But know this: I owe my career to you. And every person God has allowed me to touch, every life He has allowed me to influence, owes you a huge debt of gratitude as well.

God bless you, Vin, in this, your final season. You will be missed. You will never be forgotten. Your legacy will live on and on in the lives of many, many people.