Thursday, January 12, 2006

29,000 people and a million butterflies

The weather was crappy yesterday. The kind of shleppy day that makes you wish Summer had returned. There is one sound that can bring me back to summer, at least for a few minutes. Its the voice of baseball. Baseball has magical properties, and yesterday, the gravelly voice of Vin Scully took me back to September 9, 1965.

Its the ninth inning in the City of Angels, and Sandy Koufax has retired 24 batters in a row. He has already thrown three no hitters in his career, but this is his first shot at a perfect game.

Koufax struck out 11 coming into the ninth, including striking out the side in the eighth.

With any broadcaster this would be a legendary broadcast, but with Scully, it is elevated to another level that few baseball broadcasts can ever reach. A lot of people in the ball park are starting to see the picthes with their hearts, Scully tells us as the crowd boos an outside pitch caleed for a ball, then they erupt when Koufax strikes out Chris Krug to begin the ninth.

Joe Amalfatono pinch hits, a Dodger killer, but on this day, he would not be able to catch up with Koufax's pitches. A fastball, a curve ball tapped foul, and Scully says the mound at Dodger stadium is the lonliest place in the world right now.

A fastball comes in, Amalfatono swings and misses, and Koufax is one out away from perfection.

At 9:44, Harvey Kuehn steps to the plate. He starts off Keuhn with a fastball for strike one. Two high pitches, and Scully says you can't blame a man for trying too hard now.

Koufax gets Kuehn to swing and miss, bringing up a 2-2 count. At 9:46 PM, Koufax gets Kuehn to swing and miss for a perfect game.

If you want to listen to Scully calling the ninth inning, click here.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

can you be taken back to some place you have never been?

January 12, 2006 11:23 AM  
Blogger Air Time said...

if you listen, you'll be taken back there too

January 12, 2006 11:30 AM  
Blogger wanderer said...

As someone who grew-up in Los Angeles, the voice of Vin Scully brings back hundreds of memories of hundreds of old ballgames. As a child past my bedtime I used to listen to every single Dodger game every single night with an old transistor radio hidden under my pillow. There's no one like Vinny!

January 12, 2006 4:56 PM  
Blogger Air Time said...

As a kid growing up in Detroit, I would lie in bed at night with my transistor radio hidden and the volume turned down low, listening to Ernie Harwell call the Tigers games.

January 12, 2006 8:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I dont even know what a transistor radio is, how much old than me are you?

January 12, 2006 11:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hey there

January 18, 2006 1:23 PM  
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February 06, 2007 10:16 AM  

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