My hometown had two traffic lights. I say “had” because there’s only one now — the other has been converted into a four-way stop marked by oversized red signs.
Population: about 4,000, and my grandmother could probably name them all.
It was a great place to grow up, but when I turned 18, I left the cornfields of Iowa for the freeways of Los Angeles.
Southern California was a different world. I loved getting to know it, but nothing was familiar.
New culture. New climate. New people — lots of them.
Only one thing was truly familiar: baseball, a lifelong love of mine.
But when I tuned in via rabbit ears on a secondhand TV set, it sounded unlike anything I had ever heard.
Vincent Scully — who started his broadcasting career at WTOP — was calling the game, and his unmatched presence in the broadcast booth would not only welcome me to a new city but persuade my heart toward the Boys in Blue.
Some still think of me as a traitor or a baseball heretic. How can you switch teams?
I didn’t try to; it just happened.
Perhaps Nationals fans have a unique way of relating. Not long ago, there wasn’t a hometown team. A region with a craving for baseball had to look elsewhere to be part of the action.
Now, the city is painted red, and the racing heartbeats are real. Playoffs will toy with blood pressures.
I distinctly remember that first Dodgers broadcast I heard after moving to Southern California.
Sure, I had heard Scully broadcast baseball and other sports before. He’d been at that for decades already.
But there as something about his delivery during a Dodger game that was so inviting. More than anything, he seemed like a grandfather to me in a place where I had no family at all.
“Hi, everybody, and a very pleasant good evening to you, wherever you might be,” he begins each broadcast, which is simulcast locally on radio and television.
He often invites listeners to “pull up a chair” in the early innings, and you get a sense you’ve been asked alongside his living room recliner for story time.
Over time, as I kept listening to their games night after night, I accidentally fell in love with the Dodgers.
Some in Southern California refer to Scully as the “Soundtrack of Summer.” For me, he was the one-man welcoming committee to a place that quickly went from foreign to home.
Chavez Ravine remains one of my favorite places in the world. I can still hear Nancy Bea Hefley on the Dodger organ, slyly playing a tune from a Broadway musical that has lyrics relevant to a play on the field.
I remember Clayton Kershaw’s earliest big-league starts, and all the talk that he could be the next Sandy Koufax when he matured.
I’ve jumped around undignified after a walk-off home run. I sat crushed in the Loge section after Matt Stairs’ pinch-hit home run in the National League Championship Series in 2008.
Even now, I check the West Coast scores first thing in the morning.
And when I hear the words “It’s time for Dodger baseball,” I still get chills.
National League
- Our Nationals pastime
WTOP Sports’ Jonathan Warner discusses how the Washington Nationals have all the ingredients to win: pitching, defense, hitting, power and speed. - Another title in the Cards
WTOP Traffic’s Rich Hunter says emerging young talents and experienced players and management will help bring it all together and give the St. Louis Cardinals another world title. - Buctober
WTOP Sports’ J. Brooks says the Pittsburgh Pirates have promise and how a with a win in the Wild Card Game, they would give the Nationals a run for their money. - Together, we can be Giant again
WTOP Assistant Editor Joey Kahn looks at how the San Francisco Giants will win in 2014 after World Series victories in 2012 in 2010.
American League
- There’s no place like hO’me
WTOP Assistant Editor Samantha Loss, a lifelong Baltimore Orioles fan shares her thoughts on why the team will come out on top. - Motor City madness in D.C.
WTOP News Director Mitch Miller shares why the Detroit Tigers will motor through the tournament and eliminate the competition. - Baseball Jesus + best bullpen = win
Adrian Spinelli, special to WTOP, states that Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim’s Mike Trout, the offense and the bullpen can help the team. - We’ll always be Royal
WTOP Reporter Megan Cloherty shares why the Kansas City Royals deserve to make it to the World Series. - This is Oakland
WTOP Sports Editor Noah Frank discusses the history of the Oakland A’s and what makes them a team competitors shouldn’t discount.
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