Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Tuesday while talking to our own “Peanut” Pat Boyle, I got off on some ridiculous and meaningless tirade about how no-hitters mean nothing to me and how I’m only interested in perfect games. I said I was spoiled because I grew up in L.A. with Sandy Koufax who pitched two. Pat accused me of sounding like Ken “The Hawk” Harrelson evoking memories of past Dodgers, which was funny and accurate. In fact, Koufax only pitched one perfect game on September 9, 1965 and three other no-hitters. I imagine a young Steve Dahl was listening to Vin Scully’s call on a transistor radio stashed under his pillow tuned to KFI. You can hear Vin calling the ninth inning by clicking here.

Former White Sox manager Jeff Torborg was the catcher, and I still get baseball goose bumps listening to it. “There are 29,000 people in the stadium and 1,000,000 butterflies!” Vin Scully is the best baseball announcer who ever lived. As I listen to the top of the ninth again and type this it occurs to me that Vin must have been a greater influence on my broadcasting style than I had previously thought. He’s so natural, and turns a phrase so easily (just like me). Vin still does Dodger games. If you have the MLB package on cable or satellite TV you can still check out his fine work. How cool is it that Vin puts the date on the tape for the pitchers? He even put the time on there for Koufax.

I got off on the no-hitter rant because Jon Lester, that kid in Boston, pitched one on Monday night. I’m still mad at myself for missing that Mark Buehrle game last season. It was one of the three White Sox highlights last season. They all happened at home and I missed them all. Then PB pointed out that I missed the first John Danks attempt at a no-hitter this year, and I snapped. I did see the second one, and I am trying to be a better fan. There are just so many damned baseball games. Also, it wasn’t Jack Morris who no-hit the White Sox and still lost, it was Andy Hawkins on July 1, 1990. Jack Morris no-hit the White Sox on April 7, 1984 and won. Steve Dahl no-hit the Sox in game two on July 12, 1979 and killed disco.