Remembering Vin Scully Through Stories Not Heard On the Air and Saying Adios to Jose Fernandez in Miami

(Photos by Michael Takeuchi for 5Bamboohouse)

  Through my stint as a sportswriter and production worker, I’ve been fortunate to run into and even speak with Vin Scully on a number of occasions.   Yes, I confess that some of these “run-ins” were often of my design, especially the ones that occurred during the seventh inning at Dodger Stadium.  Not unlike a teenager would to get a glimpse of the object of a crush, I strategically took my place during the singing of “God Bless America” and subsequently “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” near the hallway of the Vin Scully Press Box just so I could shake the hand of the strolling and singing man who the building was named after.  

  Can you really blame me?

  Other times, it was pure dumb luck to interact with “Ol’ Vinny”.  Once while sitting in what is now called “Dave's Diner” (named after  Dave Pearson the ever-smiling
 friendly chef who sadly passed away in 2015), Vin’s lunch partner excused himself to go to the restroom leaving the man sitting by himself and me one table over.   Catching his eye, he smiled and we introduced ourselves.  I told him about the time my Uncle Caesar Uyesaka, nicknamed “Mr. Santa Barbara Dodger” because he was the president of the Dodgers local Single A farm team, introduced us when I was in high school. 

  From there a brief conversation about Santa Barbara ensued as well as a story about Jackie Robinson challenging him to an ice skating race.  “Now Jack, he was a real competitor…”  

 From time-to-time, proximity and fortune were my friends-such as the moment when I was there not as as sportswriter, but a production crew member for a friend.  The friend, told me to stand outside the broadcast booth and keep an eye on Vin Scully to grab him before he went to lunch.

  It just so happened that day, someone gave Mr. Scully an extremely large sombrero and he good naturedly put it on!  I was dying to pull my phone out, but used all of my self control not to capture the image of a legend wearing a sombrero three times the size of his head with a huge smile on his face. 

  “You know where the word gringo comes from?  Some say it comes from that old Robert Burns song “Green Grow the Rashes”. 

   My favorite personal Vin moment came on the blistering Sunday of August 28 2005.  In a completely empty Dodger Stadium hours before a game with the Houston Astros, Scully was at the public address microphone practicing a few announcements before a pre-game celebration to honor the 1955 World Series championship team.  There would be 13 living Dodgers in attendance, including Duke Snider, a harmonica-playing Carl “Oisk” Erskine, and Sandy Koufax, who was a wild young pitcher in that time.

  Amidst a few “check one-twos” by the sound guy, the Astros filed down through the Field Level seats instead of the usual entrance where the bus drops the players off in the right field bullpen.  Scully took the microphone with a mischievous grin. 

  “Bounding down the steps are the wildcard hopeful Houston Astros (the Astros were already13.5 games behind St. Louis at that point and weren’t going to catch the Cardinals), poised to make a deep run into the playoffs.”
  Just like that, 25 guys, Biggio, Berkman,  Pettitte, Oswalt…looked up to the press box in unison.  Only they weren’t the grizzled veterans that would go 21-11 the rest of the regular season and reach the World Series that year.  They were eight-year-olds hearing their name for the first time.   Every member looked up smiling and waved like little kids to Scully, who returned the gesture-right before the own little boy came out.

“Your pitcher Roger Clemens and your catcher Brad Ausmus have been here for hours already.  My question to you is what….took…you…so….long?”

  With that, every player laughed and gave him a “go on” wave before disappearing into the visitors’ dugout and down the steps to the clubhouse. 

    It was a moment very few seen or heard, much like the ones in the hallway or Dave’s Diner.  But they’re the ones that I’ll always remember.  Because they were mine. 

 

Imagining Jose Fernandez standing between Giancarlo Stanton and Dee Gordon.  

  MIAMI -   It had already been an inconceivably long 36 hours for Miami Marlins players Dee Gordon and Giancarlo Stanton, yet on Monday evening inside the press conference room at Marlins Park, and there was still one more task to complete – face the media for the first time since their beloved teammate Jose Fernandez died in a boating accident - before retiring to the comfort and support of their teammates. As they listened to their manager Don Mattingly address the media after a game in which the Marlins 7-3 win over the fighting-for-a-playoff-spot New York Mets was only the backdrop to the main story, the players stood stoically side by side less than a foot apart from each other. 

  As I watched them listen to Mattingly, for several seconds this writer got a sense that something static was standing between the powerful Stanton and the fleet Gordon, two players with contrasting physiques.  It was almost as if I could see the goofy middle brother draping an arm around each siblings’ neck, wearing a Cheshire Catlike grin, and a twinkle in his eye. Jose?  When Mattingly finished his conference and turned to exit and Stanton and Gordon moved to take his place at the table, I did a double take.  Did I see Fernandez slapped his teammates on the upper back and laughed?

  If only. 

 Wishful thinking can create a pretty freaking vivid image sometimes.  Or was it what they call that third eye thing (which shows that I have virtually no knowledge of what it really is)?  Whatever it was, it did make me numb enough where I don’t remember anything that was said said at that press conference, and was thankful that I had recorded it. 

 With not for the grace of technology, the whole day, batting practice, the emotional pre-game, Dee’s electricity producing big fly, and everything that happened after would have been forgotten in an absinthe-filled haze.  Only in this reality, the only liquid present came from my tear ducts.   I knew I wasn’t alone there as Marlins players, coaches, staffers, fans, and even some reporters, produced a virtual Florida rainstorm of waterworks since the word got out that the beloved 24-year-old pitcher was killed early Sunday morning with friends Emilio Macias and Eduardo Rivero as Fernandez’s boat crashed into a jetty sometime before 3 a.m. on Sunday, September 25.

  After a numbing day that included the press conference (see previous post) as well as a bizarre emergency diversion to Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport to take an ailing passenger to the hospital on my American Airlines redeye, I entered a virtually empty Marlins Park in a haze that lasted until a day after returning to California on Tuesday. 

Marlins Manager Don Mattingly's first pre-game press conference since Jose Fernandez's death. 

  I don’t remember much (the photos help bring back some memories), but I do remember standing near the path of the Marlins players as they walked onto the field.   Catching the eye of Miami’s mercurial outfielder Christian Yelich I didn’t want to say something like “sorry for your loss” because that sounds…I don’t know…energy sapping.  What does one say to an athlete in this situation?

“Stay strong brother.”

“Thanks. Yeah I will.” 

Followed by a half-hug.  Seeing this, while some filed past, a few other players followed suit towards me as if needing the same kind of validation that I gladly gave.  They were big, strong athletes, more powerful than I had ever hoped to be at any point in my life, yet with red eyes, they were proving to be just like the rest of us.  Infielder Martin Prado, someone I confess is one of my favorite players because he always grabs the ball at the end of the inning and seeks out a child to give it to, said on Sunday that they weren’t robots.  And this was the proof. 

  Like with Yelich, each current player, Prado, Marcell Ozuna, Gio Stanton, as well as Hall of Fame players from the past like Andre Dawson and Tony Perez, all expressed great appreciation for just a brief few words of support.  It was a strange but touching series of human moments when athletes that are treated like the gods that came down from Mt. Olympus, show their humanity.

 

 After all the tributes by the team, the classy gesture by the Marlins opponent that day the New York Mets, Dee Gordon’s dramatic home run and then the final tribute, Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s’s song “See You Again” the one that was made in honor of the late actor Paul Walker Jr. played for the third and last time of the evening-eliciting the same tears the writer felt the first two times it played.

 

“We've come a long way from where we began

Oh, I'll tell you all about it when I see you again

When I see you again.” Wiz Khalifa

Later that night, I went back to my room to listen to the recording of the press conference.  I sat down, popped open a Hatuey beer and thought of the press conference scene over and over and over.  After my umpteenth cry of the previous two days, I took out my voice recorder and pushed play, and smiled. There was absolutely nothing on the recording.