Edited, compiled and written by:

Tom Hoffarth: An Associated Press award-winning journalist for more than 40 years in Southern California, focusing on sports, media and business. The USC and Loyola Marymount alum has written for the Los Angeles Daily News (and the Southern California News Group, which includes the Orange County Register and Torrance Daily Breeze), the Los Angeles Times, the Sports Business Journal, the L.A. Business Journal, Angelus News and the Hollywood Reporter. He is also at FartherOffTheWall.com.

Hoffarth is a coauthor with the signature voice of USC sports Tom Kelly of “Tales from the USC Sideline: A Collection of the Greatest Trojans Stories Ever Told” (Skyhorse Publishing, last updated 2019; originally published by Sports Publishing LLC in 2007 and 2012). The book is a reflection of Kelly’s memories and previously untold anecdotes from and about the great coaches, players, teams and games in USC football history, as well as other sports.

Forward by:

Ron Rapoport: An award-winning sportswriter and author who lives in Santa Monica, California. He was a sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and the Los Angeles Daily News and sports commentator for National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition Saturday.” He also wrote about sports for the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press in New York and San Francisco. He is the recipient of the Ring Lardner Award for Excellence in Sports Journalism.

Rapoport has written and edited a number of books about sports and show business including “Let’s Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub, the Life of Ernie Banks” (2019) and “The Lost Journalism of Ring Lardner” (2017). His new book is “Frank Chance’s Diamond: The Baseball Journalism of Ring Lardner” (2024).

Broadcasters

Bob Costas: The 2017 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award given by the Baseball Hall of Fame, which recognized his work calling games for NBC, the MLB Network and TBS. The 29-time Emmy Award winner spent some of his childhood in the early 1960s living in Southern California and heard Dodgers games broadcast by Vin Scully. In June 1991, Scully had an extended conversation as a guest on NBC’s “Later with Bob Costas.” Costas was the 1999 recipient of the Curt Gowdy Media Award by the Basketball Hall of Fame and, in 2013, received the Vin Scully Award for Excellence in Broadcasting by Fordham University. He wrote the 2000 book “Fair Ball: A Fan’s Case for Baseball.“

Al Michaels: The 2021 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award given by the Baseball Hall of Fame, recognizing his work calling games for NBC and ABC in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, as well as his time with the Cincinnati Reds (1971 to ’73) and San Francisco Giants (1974 to ’76). His most memorable baseball calls include the 1989 World Series interrupted by the San Francisco Earthquake and the 1986 American League Championship Series. For his work covering the NFL, he received the 2013 Pete Rozelle Radio & Television Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In 2012 Michaels received the Vin Scully Award for Excellence in Broadcasting by Fordham University. He wrote the 2014 memoir “You Can’t Make This Up: Miracles, Memories, and the Perfect Marriage of Sports and Television” with L. Jon Wertheim.

Jaime Jarrin: The 1998 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award given by the Baseball Hall of Fame, recognizing his eventual 64-year career as the Dodgers’ Spanish-language play-by-play radio and TV broadcaster. He began his career in 1959, recreating games in Spanish that were called live by Vin Scully in English. Jarrin worked on broadcasts with his son, Jorge, from 2015 to 2020. The native of Cayambe, Ecuador, retired after the 2022 season. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1998.

Joe Davis: The Los Angeles Dodgers’ play-by-play broadcaster since 2016, overlapping for the final season of Vin Scully’s career. He joined Fox Sports in 2014 and has been the lead Major League Baseball play-by-play broadcaster since 2022. He started at ESPN in 2012 at age 24 and covered the NFL, college basketball, football, and hockey.

Joe Buck: The lead NFL play-by-play broadcaster on ESPN’s Monday Night Football, since 2022. The eight-time Emmy Award winner began broadcasting games for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1991, filling in on games for his father Joe Buck, a Ford C. Frick Award winner. During his time at Fox Sports (1994 to 2021), Joe Buck called 23 World Series games. His 2016 autobiography is titled “Lucky Bastard: My Life, My Dad and The Things I’m Not Allowed to Say on TV“ (2016). He was the 2020 recipient of the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which his father received in 1996.

Jessica Mendoza: The first female broadcaster on a Major League Baseball game when ESPN assigned her to that role in 2015. She joined the network’s Sunday Night Baseball team full-time from 2016 to 2019. The two-time U.S. Olympic softball medalist (Athens gold in 2004, Beijing silver in 2008) was a four-time first-team All-American at Stanford. A past president of the Women’s Sports Foundation, she joined the Los Angeles Dodgers’ TV analyst rotation in 2022 in addition to her continued work at ESPN.

Ross Porter: The Los Angeles Dodgers’ TV and radio broadcaster for 28 seasons, from 1977 to 2004, the fourth-longest tenure in the history of the franchise. The Oklahoma native came to LA in 1966 at age 27 to start as a sportscaster at KNBC-Channel 4. In Curt Smith’s 2005 book, “Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball’s 101 Best Announcers,” Porter is number 58, noted for his knowledge and popularity. He continues to tell stories and post interviews on his Ross Porter YouTube Channel.

Bob Miller: The 2000 recipient of the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award given by the Hockey Hall of Fame, recognizing his work calling more than 3,300 games with the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings from 1973 until his retirement in 2017 — the year after Vin Scully retired. Miller’s education at the University of Iowa included playing on the school’s baseball team. He wrote Tales from the Los Angeles Kings in 2006, which was updated in 2013 after the team’s first Stanley Cup victory. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, plus a statue outside Crypto.com Arena and a banner in his honor inside hanging from the rafters. Miller served as president of the Southern California Sports Broadcasters, which started in 1958 with Vin Scully as one of its first members. In 2018 Miller was given the SCSB’s Vin Scully Lifetime Achievement Award. He wrote “Tales from the Los Angeles Kings Locker Room: A Collection of the Greatest Kings Stories Ever Told” (2006, updated 2013)

Ken Levine: An Emmy Award–winning writer, director, and producer. During his work on “M*A*S*H,” Levin created a recurring character that appeared in Season Seven named Sergeant Jack Scully, named after Vin Scully. Levine also wrote for “Cheers,” “Frasier,” and “The Simpsons” and ventured off to become a Major League Baseball play-by-play broadcaster from 1991 through 2012 with Baltimore, Seattle, San Diego, and Los Angeles, where he also co-hosted DodgerTalk postgame shows on radio with Josh Suchon. Levine’s  Season Two episode of “The Simpsons” called “Dancin’ Homer” created the fictitious Springfield Isotopes baseball team — a nickname the Triple-A Albuquerque team eventually adopted. Levine wrote the book “It’s Gone! . . . No, Wait a Minute . . . Talking My Way into the Big Leagues at 40″ (1993) on his journey into baseball broadcasting. He hosts the podcast “Hollywood and Levine,” and his work can be found at KenLevine.Blogspot.com

Matt Vasgersian: Started his MLB play-by-play career in 1997 with Milwaukee and has continued it in San Diego (2002–2008) and with the Los Angeles Angels (2021–present). He broadcast games for NBC starting in 2001, was at Fox Sports from 2006 to 2017 and has been with the MLB Network since its launch in 2009. He was the lead play-by-play man for ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball from 2018 to 2021.

Tom Leykis: The host of his own talk-radio show from 1994 to 2009, nationally syndicated on Westwood One, and then from 2012 to 2018, based on the internet and by podcast. He worked at Los Angeles’ KFI-AM (640) from 1988 to 1992. His postcast show can be heard at PremiumTom.com.

Jim Hill: The Los Angeles–based sports anchor at KCBS-TV (Channel 2), KCAL-TV (Channel 9) and KABC-TV (Channel 7) since 1976 came into broadcasting after a career as an NFL defensive back (1968 to 1975 with San Diego, Green Bay and Cleveland). Hill did play-by-play on NFL regional broadcasts from 1980 through 1993 and was the Super Bowl XVIII sideline reporter for ABC. In 2006 he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and honored with a Golden Mike Award Lifetime Achievement recognition in 2022. He is a member of the Los Angeles Urban League board of directors.

John Ireland: The NBA Los Angeles Lakers’ radio play-by-play broadcaster since 2011. The graduate of UCLA was a sideline reporter for the team’s TV coverage from 2002 to 2010 as well as an anchor and reporter for KCAL-Channel 9 in LA from 1995 to 2012. He continues to partner with Steve Mason on the Mason and Ireland sports-talk show for KSPN-AM (710) radio in Los Angeles. Ireland has also done play-by-play on the Los Angeles Clippers and UCLA football and basketball.

Ken Korach: The Oakland Athletics’ radio play-by-play broadcaster since 1996 grew up in West LA and went to college at San Diego State and UC Santa Barbara, graduating in 1975 with a degree in Social Sciences. When he moved to Santa Rosa in the late 1970s to search for a career, he listened to Scully on the Dodgers’ Las Vegas affiliate KDWN-AM. He started his career doing MLB games with the Chicago White Sox in 1992. Korach is the author of “Holy Toledo: Lessons from Bill King, Renaissance Man of the Mic” (2013) and coauthor of “If These Walls Could Talk: The Oakland A’s” (2019).

Brian Wheeler: Called games on radio for the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers from 1998 to 2019. He was one of the NBA’s longest-tenured broadcasters with 1,823 games called for Portland. He grew up in Los Angeles until age 14 when he moved to Chicago. He is completing his autobiography, titled “It’s a Great Day: The Personal and Professional Challenges Overcome to Produce a Dream Career“.

Mike Parker: The radio play-by-play voice on Oregon State football, basketball, and baseball since 1999. He called three NCAA championship seasons for the Beavers’ baseball team (2006, ’07 and ’18) and was also the voice of the Triple-A Portland Beavers from 1987 to 1992. The Los Angeles native is a six-time Oregon Sportscaster of the Year also hosts a sports-talk show in Corvallis, Oregon, on KEJO-AM. He is a 1982 graduate of the University of Oregon with a degree in rhetoric and communications.

Josh Suchon: The play-by-play voice of the Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes since 2013. He hosted Los Angeles Dodgers’ post-game shows with Ken Levine from 2008 to 2011. His play-by-play career includes work for the Single-A Modesto Nuts. He covered the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics for the Bay Area News Group from 1996 to 2007. He is the author of three books, including “Miracle Men: Hershiser, Gibson, and the Improbable 1988 Dodgers” (2013).

Baseball execs

Bud Selig: The commissioner emeritus of Major League Baseball, having served as the game’s ninth commissioner from 1998 to 2015, plus six years prior as acting commissioner. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014. He presented Vin Scully with the Commissioner’s Historic Achievement Award in 2016. He is author of “For the Good of the Game: The Inside Story of the Surprising and Dramatic Transformation of Major League Baseball“ (2019)

Peter O’Malley: Took over ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ franchise 1979 after the death of his father, Walter, who had purchased a share of the team in 1950, was the majority owner that moved it to Los Angeles in 1958, and secured full ownership in 1975. Peter was named director of Dodgertown, the team’s Vero Beach, Florida, spring training facility, in 1962 right out of college and held executive positions with the Dodgers in the late 1960s, taking over as president in 1970 and retaining that title for twenty-eight years until the franchise was sold to Fox. He partnered with his nephew, Peter Seidler, to purchase the San Diego Padres in 2012.

Derrick Hall: President of the Arizona Diamondbacks since in 2006 and its chief executive officer since 2009. He spent 12 years in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ front office from 1993 to 2005, including serving as its senior vice president of communications. Prior to that, Hall was a sports broadcaster and hosted a talk show on the Dodgers’ XTRA-AM flagship station. He was inducted into the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame in 2019 for his impact on baseball in the state.

Josh Rawitch: President of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum since 2021. He began working for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1995 as an intern and became an executive in the communications, public relations, and broadcasting departments. In 2011 he started a decade working for the Arizona Diamondbacks as a senior vice president of content & communications. He was also once an assistant site editor and reporter for MLB.com, covering the Dodgers and San Francisco Giants.

Tim Mead: Retired as president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 2021 after two years in that role, he spent the previous 40 years with the California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels organization from 1999 to 2019, the final 21 of those as the team’s vice president of communications. He was also the Angels’ assistant general manager from 1994 to ’97. He received the MLB’s Robert O. Fischel Award for Public Relations Excellence in 2000.

Ned Colletti: The Los Angeles Dodgers’ general manager from 2006 to 2014. The team made five playoff appearances in those nine seasons. He started in public relations with the Chicago Cubs in 1982 and went to the San Francisco Giants as director of baseball operations and assistant general manager from 1994 through 2005. He served as a studio analyst on Dodgers games for SportsNet LA (2015 to 2022), was hired as a scout for the NHL’s San Jose Sharks in 2019, and has taught a sports management course at Pepperdine University in Malibu. He authored “The Big Chair: The Smooth Hops and Bad Bounces from the Inside World of the Acclaimed Los Angeles Dodgers General Manager” (2017).

Fred Claire: The Los Angeles Dodgers’ general manager from 1987 to 1998. The team made three playoff appearances in those 12 seasons, including the 1988 World Series title. He worked in the team’s front office in various roles prior to his general manager position. He began covering the Dodgers as a sportswriter in the 1950s and ‘60s, wrote “My 30 Years in Dodger Blue” (2004) and is the subject of “Extra Innings: Fred Claire’s Journey to City of Hope and Finding a World Championship Team” (2020), where Vin Scully is included in honoring Claire’s commitment to the cancer-treatment facility.

Actors

Bryan Cranston: A six-time Emmy Award winner best known for playing Walter White in the AMC crime drama “Breaking Bad.” He has won two Tony Awards and was in the cast of the Academy Award’s 2013 Best Picture winner “Argo.” He was born in Hollywood and raised in the San Fernando Valley area of Canoga Park. He also chronicles his love of the Dodgers in his autobiography “Life in Parts” (2017).

Harry Shearer: An Emmy Award–winning character voice on the television series “The Simpsons” since 1983, occasionally playing a baseball announcer that sounds particularly like Vin Scully. In Season 28, Shearer even voices the role of a character named Vin Scully Impersonator in an episode called “The Caper Chase” (2017). He co-wrote, co-created, and costarred in the 1984 film “This Is Spinal Tap.” His acting roles include “A Mighty Wind” (2003), “For Your Consideration” (2006), “The Right Stuff” (1983) and “The Truman Show” (1998). He was a writer and cast member on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” from 1979 to 1985 — once doing a Scully character during the 1984 World Series as Bob Uecker was the SNL host. His work can be found at HarryShearer.com.

Players in the media

Orel Hershiser: Played 18 MLB seasons (1983 to 2000), 13 of them with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He set the MLB record for consecutive scoreless innings pitched (59, in 1988), the same year he won the National League Cy Young Award and World Series MVP. He posted a 204-150 record in 510 games, won a Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger, and was named to three All-Star Games. He joined the Dodgers’ SportsNet LA when it launched in 2014 after working as baseball analyst at ABC and on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball (2010–2013). He is the author of “Out of the Blue” (1989) and “Between the Lines: Nine Things Baseball Taught Me About Life” (2002).

Steve Garvey: Played 19 MLB seasons (1969 to 1987), 14 of them with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He set the National League record for playing in 1,207 consecutive games from 1975 to 1983, won four Gold Gloves, and was the first to be voted into the All-Star Game starting lineup as a write-in candidate, winning the 1974 game MVP the same year he was NL MVP. A 10-time National League All Star, he received MVP votes in nine seasons, finishing second in 1978. In addition to a 1986 autobiography, he wrote “My Bat Boy Days: Lessons I Learned from the Boys of Summer” (2008).

Eric Karros: Played 14 MLB seasons (1991 to 2004), 12 of them with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He won the 1992 National League Rookie of the Year award. The UCLA graduate remains the franchise’s Los Angeles leader in career home runs with 270. He has been a baseball analyst for Fox Sports since 2004 and, in 2022, joined the Dodgers’ SportsNet LA team. Karros’ son Jared, a pitcher out of UCLA, was drafted by the Dodgers in 2022.

Journalists

Will Leitch: A contributing editor at New York magazine and the founder of the late sports website Deadspin. He also writes regularly for the New York Times, Washington Post, nbc News, Medium.com, and mlb.com. He is the author of six books, including “God Save the Fan: How Preening Sportscasters, Athletes Who Speak in the Third Person and the Occasional Convicted Quarterback Have Taken the Fun Out of Sports (And How We Can Get It Back” (2008) and “Are We Winning? Fathers and Sons in the New Golden Age of Baseball” (2010). His latest novels are “How Lucky” (2021) and “The Time Has Come” (2023). His work on the Will Leitch Experience can be found at leitch.tumblr.com.

Patt Morrison: The longtime Los Angeles Times writer and columnist has a share of two Pulitzer Prizes. As a public television and radio broadcaster, she has won six Emmys and a dozen Golden Mike awards. She has written “Rio LA: Tales from the Los Angeles River” (2001) and “Don’t Stop the Presses! Truth, Justice, and the American Newspaper” (2018). She received the lifetime achievement from the Los Angeles Press Club in 2006. Pink’s, the renowned Hollywood hot dog stand, named its vegetarian dog the “Patt Morrison Baja Dog” after her.

Bill Dwyer: In addition to the Los Angeles Times sports editor from 1981 to 2006, a three-times-a-week sports columnist from 2006 to 2015. Dwyre won the Red Smith Award in 1996 by the Associated Press Sports Editors for sustained excellence in sports journalism. He was sports editor of the Milwaukee Journal from 1973 to 1981

Chris Erskine: The nationally known humor columnist and a former editor for the Los Angeles Times spent 10 years writing about sports during his thirty years at the newspaper from 1990 to 2020. He is the author of four books, including “Man of the House” (2006) and “Daditude: The Joys and Absurdities of Modern Fatherhood” (2018). His work can currently be found at ChrisErskineLA.com

T.J. Simers: Sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times (1990 to 2013) as well as the Orange County Register, San Diego Union, Rocky Mountain News, and the Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn.). He was named 2000 California Sports Writer of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association.

Steve Dilbeck: The lead sports columnist for the Southern California News Group from 2001 to 2009. He has also worked for the Los Angeles Times, the San Bernardino Sun, and Gannett News Service. He started writing professionally in 1977 and has covered the Angels, Dodgers, Lakers, and Rams, plus 18 World Series, 14 Super Bowls, 13 NBA Finals, and five Olympics.

Jill Painter Lopez: A sports reporter at KCBS-Channel 2 and KCAL-Chanel 9 in Los Angeles and an MLB Network correspondent. She has done live sideline reporting on the MLB Angels and NHL Ducks for Bally Sports West. She was a columnist and reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News from 2000 to 2014.

Sammy Roth: Covers energy, climate and environmental issues for the Los Angeles Times and previously worked at the Desert Sun and USA Today. He grew up in Westwood. A version of his essay was published in the Desert Sun newspaper in Palm Springs, California, in September 2016. His work can be found at sammyroth.pressfolios.com.

Brian Golden: An Associated Press sports editors’ award-winning columnist for the Antelope Valley Press, covering Southern California sports on the professional, college, and high school levels for more than four decades through 2020

Lisa Nehus Saxon: Teaches media at Santa Monica College and Palisades Charter High School. She wrote for the Los Angeles Daily News from 1979 until 1987.

Dennis McCarthy: An award-winning columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News since 1982 and in the Southern California newspaper business for more than 50 years, out of San Fernando Valley State College in Northridge in 1971. Author of the 2011 book, “Here’s to the Winners.” His 2010 column about Scully included: The great ones … you want to remember them at the top of their game. Like Vin Scully still is at age 82.”

JP Hoornstra: A multimedia reporter and podcast host covering baseball for the Southern California News Group since 2006, and he also appears on Access: SportsNet Dodgers on SportsNet LA. The UCLA graduate is the author of “The 50 Greatest Dodgers Games of All Time” (2015).

Pablo Kay: The editor-in-chief of Angelus News, the news publication of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, since 2019.

Paul Vercammen: A five-time Emmy Award–winning Los Angeles–based journalist who worked 26 years at CNN, served as news director and anchor at KEYT Santa Barbara, and graduated from and taught as an adjunct professor at USC.

TV executives/media cohorts

Jeff Proctor: President of the independent sports production company ProAngle Media since 2005. In the sports television business since 1997, he was an Emmy Award–winning executive producer for Dodgers games on Fox Sports Net West, West 2, and Prime Ticket in Los Angeles, the nation’s largest regional sports network. He was vice president of sports for KCBS-Channel 2 and KCAL-Channel 9 in LA for five years and has been a broadcasting consultant for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Tom Villante: The Dodgers’ radio and TV game producer from 1952 to 1958, returned to New York and, in 1968, headed Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BBDO) Advertising’s account as executive director of Major League Baseball’s ad campaign. In 1979 he joined Major League Baseball as its executive director of marketing and broadcasting, advising teams on negotiating local broadcasting rights. He helped created the sport’s first ad slogan: “Baseball Fever: Catch It!” He lives in New York.

Andy Rosenberg: Received 17 Emmy Awards as a network TV director at NBC Sports (1979 to 2014). His work included 13 Olympics; 22 Wimbledon Championships; 11 French Opens; 12 NBA Finals; three World Series; 13 bowl games, including three College Football National Championships; and 10 years of many professional golf events.

Boyd Robertson: Retired as the stage manager in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ TV booth in 2021 after thirty-two years, twenty-eight of them working with Scully. He was a TV stage manager on NBA broadcasts with the Los Angeles Lakers’ Hall of Famer Chick Hearn. Robertson also worked at ABC with Jim McKay, Keith Jackson, and the Monday Night Football crew of Howard Cosell, Frank Gifford, and Don Meredith.

Brent Shyer: The Dodgers’ director of broadcasting, publications and new media from 1988 to 2001. He is currently vice president of special projects for O’Malley Seidler Partners.

Doug Mann: A Southern California-based radio and television sports statistician on live broadcasts of the NBA (Lakers and Clippers), MLB (Dodgers and Angels), NHL (Kings), UCLA and USC men’s and women’s basketball, and Major League Soccer since 1974. His research work has helped Hall of Fame broadcasters Vin Scully, Chick Hearn, and Bob Miller. Mann has also done NFL, NBA, NHL and NCAA football and basketball for major networks with Al Michaels, Bob Costas, Dick Enberg, Marv Albert, Kenny Albert, Bob Cole, and Charlie Jones.

Ben Platt: Webmaster of the Dodgers’ first official website from April 1996 through 2001. It set the template for how MLB teams established their websites, eventually leading to Platt working a senior correspondent and field producer for mlb.com and MLB Advanced Media from 2000 to 2018.

John Olguin: The principal for JO Sports Strategy, was the vice president of public relations for the Los Angeles Dodgers during his time with the team from 1992 to 2005. He is former senior vice president of marketing and communications for Chip Ganassi Racing.

Jon Weisman: The founder and writer of the pioneering baseball website DodgerThoughts.com. He has spent more than 30 years writing about sports and entertainment for the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, ESPN.com, Si.com, and Variety. He was the Los Angeles Dodgers’ director of digital and print content from 2013-17  and rejoined the team in 2023 as VP, communication . He has written “Brothers in Arms: Koufax, Kershaw, and the Dodgers’ Extraordinary Pitching Tradition” (2018) and “100 Things Dodgers Fans Should Know & Do before They Die” (2013, last updated in 2021). Weisman’s journey to his first interview with Scully is included in the documentary “Bluetopia: The LA Dodgers Movie” (2009), celebrating the team’s 50 years in Los Angeles. 

Historians 

David J. Halberstam: A longtime member of the voting panel for the Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually for excellence in baseball broadcasting by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. He is a noted historian and columnist on his Sports Broadcast Journal website since 2018. Halberstam called basketball games for more than a quarter century, including for St. John’s University and the NBA’s Miami Heat. He served as executive vice president and general manager of Westwood One Sports. He has authored two books, including “Sports on New York Radio: A Play-by-Play History” (1999). He is the creator of the website SportsBroadcastJournal.com.

Paul Haddad: A Los Angeles Times best-selling author who writes about his native Los Angeles. His 2012 book “High Fives, Pennant Drives, and Fernandomania: A Fan’s History of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Glory Years 1977–1981” was inspired by his collection of recorded Dodgers broadcasts. His X platform @la_dorkout honors many forgotten aspects of Los Angeles. His website is paulhaddadbooks.com.

Academics 

Joe Saltzman: A professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism, beginning as an adjunct lecturer in 1964. He became a full-time faculty member in 1974 when he left CBS to start the university’s broadcasting major track. He is director of the Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture, a project of the Norman Lear Center. He is the author of “Frank Capra and the Image of the Journalist in American Film” ( 2002) and “Heroes and Scoundrels: The Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture” (2015). His website is JoeSaltzman.org.

Dan Durbin, Ph.D.: Founder and director of the Annenberg Institute of Sports, Media and Society at the University of Southern California. He is also creator of the African-American Experience in Major League Baseball Oral Histories Project research program, examining the meaning of sport as a rhetorical process

Dale Marini: A 1970 graduate of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, received a master’s degree in Education from the school in 1975. He retired as LMU’s associate director of admission in 2014. He also was the official scorer of LMU’s men’s basketball for forty-four years and was inducted into the LMU Athletics Hall of Fame as a benefactor in 2015. His essay is adapted from a story he wrote for LMU Magazine on Dec. 5, 2016, and was reprinted with permission. The story is based on a photograph taken at Vin Scully’s final broadcast in San Francisco, where an Associated Press photographer captured Scully waving to Marini’s son, Matt, and was circulated nationally.

Michael Green, Ph.D.: The department chair of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, specializing in Nevada history, 19th Century America, and Abraham Lincoln. He earned his BA and MA at UNLV and his PhD at Columbia. Among the books he has authored are “Freedom, Union, and Power: Lincoln and His Party during the Civil War” (2004) and “Lincoln and the Election of 1860” (2011). His works on Nevada include “Las Vegas: A Centennial History” with Eugene Moehring (2005).

Religious

Tim Klosterman: An associate pastor at St. Monica Catholic Church in Santa Monica from 2008 to 2012, when he joined in celebrating Mass at Dodger Stadium and Angel Stadium. He was director of pastoral formation at the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo through 2020.

Fr. Willy Raymond: Chaplain to the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2004 to 2014 while he was as associate at St. Monica Catholic Church in Santa Monica. The Maine native has been president of Holy Cross Family Ministries in Easton, Massachusetts, since 2014. He was also the national director of Family Theater Productions in Los Angeles (2000–2014) and has been a board member of Catholic Athletes for Christ since 2005.

Kevin O’Malley: The head of operations and MLB ministry coordinator for Catholic Athletes for Christ, is also a senior federal official working on budget and policy issues in Washington DC. He earned a Communications and Public Relations degree with a minor in marketing at the University of Dayton, where he broadcast the Flyers’ football and basketball games.

More familiar names

Gil Hodges Jr.: The only son of Baseball Hall of Fame first baseman Gil Hodges was a first baseman drafted by the New York Mets in 1971 out of Long Island University and played two seasons of Single-A level. He is part of the 2021 documentary The Gil Hodges Story: Soul of A Champion. He is living and working in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

Ann Meyers Drysdale: Inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993 and the first women to receive a full athletic scholarship to UCLA, where she became a four-time All-American. It led to a tryout with the NBA’s Indiana Pacers in 1979. She married Los Angeles Dodgers Hall of Fame pitcher Don Drysdale in 1986 and has three children. She joined the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury in 2007 as a vice president, as well and color analyst for both franchises. Her forty-plus years broadcasting spanning six Olympics has included every major network. Her memoir is titled “You Let Some Girl Beat You? The Story of Ann Meyers Drysdale” (2012).

Bruce Froemming: Third all-time with 5,163 games umpired in Major League Baseball during thirty-seven seasons (1971 to 2007). He holds the record for participating in the most no-hitters as an umpire (eleven, including Nolan Ryan’s record-breaking fifth, which Vin Scully called) and most games umpired in the postseason, which includes twenty-two World Series contests. Froemming was the second base umpire for two games Scully said were among his most memorable: Kirk Gibson’s 1988 World Series Game One home run and Dennis Martinez’s perfect game in 1991, both at Dodger Stadium.

Dennis Gilbert: One of the managing principals of Paradigm Gilbert, an insurance and financial-services firm. He was co-founder and chair of the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation to help families of scouts in need. He was co-founder of Beverly Hills Sports Council, where he negotiated thousands of contracts from 1980 to 1999 for more than two hundred athletes, including Mike Piazza, Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, George Brett, and Bobby Bonilla. Gilbert played professional baseball in the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets organizations out of Gardena High School and LA City College. He has a baseball field named for him at Los Angeles Southwest Community College, which was home of baseball’s RBI Youth Program

Kevin Fagan: Created the comic strip Drabble when he was 22 years old in 1979. It appears in more than two hundred newspapers across the nation. He and his wife are parents of three children and live in Mission Viejo. His work and writing can currently be found at Drabble.substack.com and at twitter.com/drabblecomic.

Emma Amaya: A retired computer programmer and analyst who works part-time in the Dodger Stadium team store. She was the 2013 recipient of the Baseball Reliquary’s Hilda Award and is a member of the Society of American Baseball Research.. In addition to her X (Twitter) social media account @crzblue, she also posts at  @Dodgershaiku with a daily haiku poem about the Dodgers games. Part of Emma’s essay recalls the time she saw Vin leaving the ballpark and was able to call out to him for a goodnight message. It was even recorded: