ANAHEIM — Like so many, Oakland Athletics broadcaster Ken Korach grew up with Vin Scully narrating his baseball summers.
Born in Los Angeles, Korach recalls seeing the Dodgers play at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, the team’s home for its first four seasons on the West Coast. His father coached high school baseball, Korach said Wednesday, and the Dodgers would offer game passes to local coaches.
“And the transistor radios were plentiful because we were always sitting, like, miles from the field” at the football-first stadium, Korach said. “People listening to Vin at the ballpark. And you didn’t have to bring a radio to listen to Vin.”
Scully, the legendary voice of the Dodgers, died Tuesday night at age 94. His impact extends into the current A’s clubhouse — and radio booth, of course, where Korach and Vince Cotroneo learned of Scully’s death during the sixth inning of the A’s-Angels game Tuesday.
Korach said his first “indelible” memory of a Scully broadcast is of Sandy Koufax’s perfect game in 1965, which the then-13-year-old heard at a friend’s house. Korach met and interviewed Scully in 1997 for a pregame show.
“It was probably as thrilling a moment as I’ve ever had,” Korach said, “other than the birth of our child and getting married.”
One principle that Scully imparted: “Credibility is No. 1,” Korach said. “He played it down the middle. He always gave the other team its due. He said, ‘If you always say everything is great for your team, it’s never going to matter if something great happens.’ I’ve tried to carry that with me in my broadcasts. And I think there’s a tradition of that in the Bay Area. Bill (King) was like that.”
Scully called numerous great moments. He also was known for weaving stories that could enliven even the most mundane games — a reflection of diligent preparation, Korach said.
An example, Korach said: With the A’s at Dodger Stadium for an interleague series, shortly before Scully retired, Scully ducked into the visitors’ radio booth to ask about then-A’s pitching coach Curt Young.
“I said, ‘Vin, you’re really hustling,’” Korach said. “He goes, ‘This is what we do. We tie it all together. And when Curt Young goes to the mound to visit one of the A’s pitchers, I would feel terrible if I couldn’t tell the story of when Curt Young was on this very mound pitching for the A’s in the 1988 World Series.’”
A’s manager Mark Kotsay, from Southern California, recalled that when he faced the Dodgers as a player, Scully often talked about Kotsay’s father being a motorcycle cop in the Los Angeles area. Shortstop Elvis Andrus said meeting Scully was top of his list the first time he faced the Dodgers with the Rangers: “I was like a little kid. I just wanted to hear his voice.”
Bench coach Brad Ausmus’ playing career finished with the Dodgers. But Ausmus said his best Scully memory occurred later when Ausmus was working for the Padres and saw Scully at a game at Petco Park.
“I happened to have my family with me,” Ausmus said. “Vin happened to be walking through the garage the same time as us, comes up, ‘Brad, great to see you, let me meet your family.’ Couldn’t be a kinder human being.”
A’s first-base coach Eric Martins, born in East L.A. and raised in Whittier, said Dodger games on radio were a staple in his house or backyard. Martins later met Scully while scouting for the A’s and snapped a photo, which he posted on Twitter on Tuesday and said is “one of my prized possessions.”
“In L.A., you had Chick Hearn with the Lakers, but Vin Scully was the man,” Martins said. “That’s the voice that sticks in my head anytime I think about baseball.”
Matt Kawahara covers the A’s for The San Francisco Chronicle.
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