RELATED • DEFORD: Spring Has Sprung (April 10, 1978) • COPE: How good was Clemente? (March 7, 1966) • SCHWARTZ: A Day of Light And Shadow (Feb. 6, 1979) • HOFFER: The Importance Of Being Barry (May 24, 1993) • REILLY: Heaven Help Marge Schott (May 20, 1996) • HOFFER: Hand it to Cal (Dec. 18, 1995)

By Robert Creamer

When Vin Scully came to Los Angeles with the transplanted Brooklyn Dodgers, he was a stranger in alien corn. But he soon became as much a part of Southern California as the freeways.

Give a word-association test to a baseball fan from Omaha or Memphis or Philadelphia and suddenly throw in the phrase "Los Angeles Dodgers" and almost certainly the answer will be "Sandy Koufax" or "Maury Wills" or "Don Drysdale" or even "Walter O'Malley" or "Chavez Ravine."

Give the same test to a fan from Los Angeles and the odds are good that the answer will be "Vin Scully."

Scully has become as much a part of the Los Angeles scene as the freeways and the smog. His pleasantly nasal baritone comes out of radios on the back counters of orange juice stands, from transistors held by people sitting under trees, in barber shops and bars, and from cars everywhere?parked cars, cars waiting for red lights to turn green, cars passing you at 65 on the freeways, cars edging along next to you in rush-hour traffic jams.

Vin Scully's voice is better known to most Los Angelenos than their next-door neighbor's is. He has become a celebrity. He is stared at in the street. Kids hound him for autographs. Out-of-town visitors at ball games in Dodger Stadium have Scully pointed out to them -- as though he were the Empire State Building -- as he sits in his broadcasting booth describing a game, his left hand lightly touching his temple in a characteristic pose that his followers dote on and which, for them, has come to be his trademark.

Baseball broadcasts are popular in all major league cities, but in Los Angeles they are as vital as orange juice ...

Issue date: May 4, 1964

For the complete story, see the new book, Sports Illustrated: Great Baseball Writing, available by clicking here or by calling 800-457-4063.