How the new rules will impact the storytellers (#VinScully)

Games are shorter by a good chunk, thanks to the speed-up rules now in place. MLB thinks that’s a good thing, but who are they trying to convince?

“Real” baseball fans, IMO, don’t care about the length of the games. The longer the better (unless the weather is crappy). That’s what separates baseball from other — i.e., timed — sports. This is where I start waxing nostalgic, about games played in the warm, carefree days of summer. Maybe that’s the way it was, but not anymore. It seems short attention spans have won the day. Consultants often point to competition from other, faster, more instantly-gratifying diversions. People like me are a dying breed so MLB no longer really cares about us; it’s all about the young people. (How often do we complain about seeing the fans behind home plate on TV who seemed glued to their smartphones?) Fair enough. We’ve had our fun.

But I feel sad for the new generation of fans in a way. Shorter games mean broadcasters, mindful of the quicker turnaround time between pitches, will have fewer chances to share stories about the game’s history. (I’m sure the time allotted for commercials will not be reduced, however.) Can you imagine telling someone like Vin Scully to keep it short? I focus on this legendary wordsmith of the airwaves because of a book paying tribute to him after his passing.

Vin Scully: The Voice of the Dodgers was released by the Los Angeles Times last October, a mere couple of months after his death. As one would expect, it was full of loving sentiments by Dodger fans and by that, in this case, I mean journalists from the paper such as Bill Plashke. Some contributions are in memoriam while others appeared in the Times over the years. One of my favorites is about Scully’s joining the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2017 in a presentation of Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait” at the famed Hollywood Bowl (“Scully’s L.A. Phil doubleheader would even make Lincoln Proud,” by Randy Lewis, July 18, 2017). There are too many other great pieces to single out more here.

Because this book is meant as an immersive project — almost a necessity to remain relevant in the publishing world these days — there are a number of QR codes in the book which lead the reader to further articles and videos of Scully in action. Surprisingly, the aforementioned Philharmonic gig is not among them, but that may be for rights reasons that are beyond my ken.

Certainly there are others memorable men and women from the broadcast booths and authors like Curt Smith have paid tribute with such books as