In 1950, Vin Scully joined the Brooklyn Dodgers broadcast booth. As a child, my father was blessed to have heard a booth with both Scully and Red Barber call Dodger games. It was the broadcast he was listening to when his beloved Dodgers won the 1955 World Series. Then the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958, and Scully went with them. 

It would be another 30 years until my father heard Scully call a game in which his favorite team won the World Series. What Mets fan doesn’t remember this call:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=POGMmdofCrs

The answer is several. Amazingly, this call was 30 years ago. Chances are if you were born after 1976, you don’t have a vivid memory of this call. 

I know I don’t, but that’s not because of my memory. I remember that moment like it was yesterday. The reason why I don’t remember the call was I never heard it. My parents had thrown an engagement party for my aunt, which was really an excuse to get a ton of Mets fans together to watch Game 6. When that ball went through Buckner’s legs, everyone erupted and drowned out the call. So like many Mets fans today, I have no specific recollection of hearing Vin Scully calling a Mets game. 

That’s a shame. He’s retiring this year, and tonight may be the last time he will ever call a Mets game as he doesn’t make road trips anymore. We’ve seen the tributes from Gary Cohen and Howie Rose. They were well done, but there’s a much more fitting tribute. The Mets should air an inning (or half inning) of Vin Scully calling the game. Let Mets fans, young and old, get the opportunity to marvel at what makes Scully among the greatest, if not the greatest, broadcaster that ever lived. 

Mets fans should once again hear Scully calling a Mets game. As we saw in 1986, it is pure magic.