Master of Stories

            Most of the time, life’s moments seem to pass by in fast-forward. We find ourselves standing at the counter at 10 p.m., making the kids’ lunches and wondering where another day has gone. The list of things to do and places to be is ever-growing, and the social media overload vies for any free time we might have.

            In short, 21^st-century society is desperately lacking in downtime – in a chance to reclaim ourselves and reconnect with life beyond that to-do list. Perhaps that’s why, despite the BuzzFeeds and Snapchats and Twitters, many Americans have been reaching for podcasts and longform journalism in recent years. It’s as though they are saying, “Enough is enough,” and crying out for the power of deliberate storytelling.

            We all have known people in our family, friend group, school or workplace who knew how to tell a story. We have sat down and listened to these people share details and narratives that painted pictures in our minds. For my brother and me, our grandparents were the key storytellers in our early lives. Our dad’s mom told us about her Norwegian mother and Icelandic father immigrating to America and adjusting to this new world. Our mom’s mother regaled us with tales of her brother, who could light up a room, yet had passed away before we were born.

            Our dad’s father died when we were young, but not before he had told us all about his favorite baseball player as a child, Zack Wheat of the Brooklyn Dodgers. And our mother’s dad, who lived until we were in our 30s, filled our lives (and tape recorders) with tales of his brothers and sisters, minor-league baseball career, marriage to our grandmother and battles with alcoholism. He was our personal podcast before there were any, giving us stories we could file away and download when life called for it – stories that were by turns gritty, nostalgic and at times hilarious.

            Our grandparents, and their generation, are almost all gone now. But not completely. Sunday, an 88-year-old California man bid goodbye to his job as baseball’s premiere storyteller. His name is Vin Scully, and he called Dodgers ballgames for 67 years, from 1950 all the way to this past weekend. His longevity is unparalleled in baseball, but Scully’s gift was much more than sheer perseverance. He was the best storyteller in a sport flush with them, and he could make even a passing baseball fan feel enraptured in tales about players’ lives, American history and the unique quirks of baseball.

            There were a number of years in which Scully called World Series games for NBC, and many of us heard him add stamps of literary brilliance to dramatic October moments. For those who lived in Brooklyn and then Los Angeles, Scully’s voice was part of the soundtrack to spring and summer, guiding them through three score and seven years of Dodgers: from Jackie Robinson to Sandy Koufax to Maury Wills to Steve Garvey to Fernando Valenzuela to Mike Piazza to Clayton Kershaw to Corey Seager. And for those who used streaming or cable services to subscribe to every Major League Baseball broadcast, Scully’s voice could still be heard across the nation as he called Dodgers home games by himself in the broadcast booth.

            I listened to Scully’s final broadcast on Sunday, as he told stories of great Dodgers-Giants rivalries of old, while calling a game in which the San Francisco Giants defeated the Dodgers to earn a playoff berth. Scully had grown up rooting for the Giants, then spent more than three-quarters of his life working for the Dodgers. It was a perfect sendoff for the great broadcaster, and he signed off in class modest style, telling his listeners that he always needed them much more than they needed him.

            He also departed by paraphrasing a quote from Dr. Seuss, telling us not to be sad that it’s over, but rather to “smile because it happened.” With these words, Scully was connecting his career with the essence of storytelling. We do tell stories so that we can smile about the things that have happened, and this in turn helps assuage the losses we experience, as well as the relentless passage of time. These stories give us moments we can’t forget, and which we will pass along to those younger than us. Be it a grandparent, a teacher, a good friend or even a broadcaster, storytellers give us the chance to press pause on life, and savor what is richest and most beautiful about this time we get on Earth.

            Vin Scully is still very much alive, and he will keep sharing stories with his children, grandkids and great-grandchildren. He might even pop into a broadcast booth now and then. But wherever he goes, he will leave us all much richer for the time he spent with us, turning a nine-inning ballgame into the fabric of life.

Bunting Her Over (One Sixty-Two: Day 152)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day One Hundred Fifty-Two: Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers

All it took was a little Play-Doh. I should have known all along.

Chelsea has been more distant from me lately. She’s got a lot going on in her little head, as the transition into a new school for kindergarten has not been easy for her. She misses her mom and her grandparents and her best friend Jimmy each day, and she wishes they were with her in school. She misses me, too, but she’s used to me being out at work each day. Her Mommy and Nana, well, they’ve always been there for her. And when they’ve been gone, she’s always had her blankie. But you can’t bring a blankie with you to kindergarten.

I want to talk with Chelsea, and help her through this in all the ways I can. But when I try to engage her in conversation, she usually grunts and continues what she’s doing – playing in the yard, or watching some TV, or eating her dinner. She doesn’t want to talk about school, especially when I bring it up. If she had a solution to what she’s working through, she’d have handled it already. She doesn’t want to hear Daddy’s advice.

This evening, with my wife and older daughter out of the house for a while, Chelsea and I had some time alone together. She took her shower, put on her nightgown and asked me if she could play with Play-Doh. I said sure, and put the Play-Doh out on the table for her. I then went back to getting myself ready for work tomorrow. But somewhere in between laying out my clothes and making my sandwich, I stopped and realized that I needed to sit with my little girl far more than I needed to do anything else.

So I sat down next to Chelsea. “Do you want to play Play-Doh with me?” she asked. I told her I did. “Can you make some ice cream for me?” she asked. I told her I could. So I sat and made her a Play-Doh sundae, and she gave me a little Play-Doh cherry on top. We made a plate full of little Play-Doh balls, and worked together to create a Play-Doh Pac-Man.

After a little while, Chelsea and I looked out the window and noticed the full moon shining for us in the sky. We talked about that for a while. Dessert was in order, and Chelsea was up for apple slices with vanilla ice cream. By the time Mom and Katie got home, it felt as though they’d been gone for just a few minutes.

Chelsea and I didn’t talk about school – not this time. But we spent time together, messing around with some Play-Doh, and that’s what we needed to do first. You don’t get a runner home from first base on a single very often. But if you take the simple step of bunting him over to second, he’s likely to score on a base hit. No one’s done the sacrificing thing better in 2010 than Clayton Kershaw, the Dodgers pitcher who has a major-league-high 17 sacrifices on the year.

I bunted today, and that sacrifice brought my dialogue with Chelsea over to second base. Now that we’re there, maybe next time we can talk some more about how school is going. For tonight, though, just rolling some green Play-Doh along the table was plenty. It was perfect, in fact. Kind of like a full moon. Or a nice, soft bunt.

New Stars (One Sixty-Two: Day 85)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Eighty-Five: Evan Meek, Pittsburgh Pirates

For me, one of the coolest things about baseball’s All-Star Game is seeing a virtually unknown player announced during the pregame player introductions. At least once a year, a player comes out of nowhere to produce a great first half and earn a spot on either the National League or American League team. As a result, that young man earns the right to line up, tip his cap, and stand alongside superstars.

When I was younger, I collected the entire set of each year’s Topps baseball cards, as well as the free Yankees cards I got at Burger King. Still, I didn’t know every player – and even if I’d heard of the player’s name and seen his baseball card photo, I might not have watched him play on the field before. So in 1981, for instance, when Cleveland Indians catcher Bo Diaz suited up for the All-Star Game, he was a newcomer to me as well as to most of America. Same for Jim Presley, the Seattle Mariners third baseman who earned a spot in 1986. And Mike Sharperson, the Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman who was named in 1992. And Lance Carter, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays relief pitcher, who was an All-Star in 2003.

This year, the out-of-nowhere award goes to Pirates reliever Evan Meek. I had first heard of Meek a few weeks ago, when the fantasy-baseball sites started crowing about his great work as a middle reliever. But I’ve never seen him pitch. This is Meek’s second full year in the majors, and thus far in 2010 he has a 1.11 earned-run average in 40 games pitched, to go with nearly a strikeout per inning. After years in the minor leagues, the guy has dazzled this season for a losing team, and it did not go unnoticed.

So when he stepped forward during the All-Star introductions to tip his cap, Meek was this year’s unknown. At 6 feet tall and 225 pounds, he looked like a man who had built up strong legs in order to power himself off the pitching rubber. Unfortunately, no one got to see Meek pitch on Tuesday, as he was not used in the game. But if he keeps it up, perhaps Meek will be back for another try next July.

I’ll be keeping my eyes out for a chance to spot Meek on the mound, maybe during some baseball highlights or perhaps even in a televised Pirates game. Until then, I’ll add Evan Meek to the list of ballplayers who got that unexpected chance to step into baseball’s midsummer spotlight. He tipped his cap, smiled for the fans, and stood shoulder to shoulder with the greatest baseball players in the world. It’s not a bad way to spend a summer’s night. Not bad at all.

Wally, Willy & Lyle (One Sixty-Two: Day 72)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Seventy-Two: Lyle Overbay, Toronto Blue Jays

This may be a Wally Pipp story, and it might be a Willy Loman Story. But it definitely is a Lyle Overbay story.

Lyle Overbay is 33 years old, and he’s in his eighth full season as a big-league first baseman. He was a rising star for the Milwaukee Brewers five years ago, he blossomed in 2006 after a trade to Toronto, and then, well, he kind of fizzled.

This is the fourth straight year in which Overbay has delivered mediocre numbers as the Blue Jays’ first baseman. He’s managed to hold onto his job in large part because of his ability to take walks and play a strong defensive first base. But this year, with his batting average down below .240, it may be time.

Just like Wally Pipp, who famously lost his New York Yankees first base job to the young Lou Gehrig in 1925, Overbay may lose his spot to a young lefty slugger biding his time in the minor leagues. The young kid’s name is Brett Wallace, and apparently he can hit the ball a mile. The 23-year-old is ready and waiting for the day when Toronto picks up the phone.

Just like Willy Loman, who decried the loss of his salesman skills in Arthur Miller’s classic play, Overbay may be in his final days as a starting position player. If the Blue Jays trade him, it will likely be to a team that needs a lefty off the bench for pinch-hitting and late-inning defense. Will Overbay go quietly into the role of bench player, or will he fight the inevitable by clamoring for one last chance?

If indeed the Blue Jays trade their first baseman, there’s another possible role Lyle Overbay might play in the future. Instead of becoming a Pipp- or Loman-like symbol of loss or regret, perhaps Overbay will become the next Lenny Harris. For a few years in the early 1990s, Harris was a regular for the Los Angeles Dodgers, playing a variety of infield and outfield positions. But then Harris was asked to pinch-hit. And by the time he retired after 18 seasons, Harris held the major league record for most pinch hits in a career.

With his selectivity at the plate and his ability to make contact, Overbay may have a long pinch-hitting career ahead of him. By looking at the opportunities gained rather than the opportunities lost, he could do quite well for himself. In fact, he might still be entering his prime.

Turtle Out of Water (One Sixty-Two: Day 66)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Sixty-Six: Andre Ethier, Los Angeles Dodgers

We inched our canoe up to theirs, the two boys calling to us with wild-eyed wonder. Their father seemed pretty excited, too. They were pointing to the back of their canoe, imploring us to take a look. When we’d pulled up next to them, we looked inside and there it was – a beautiful brown turtle, no bigger than a shoe box.

I was out with my wife and girls for a Father’s Day treat at the Cranford Canoe Club, a legendary canoe -rental facility in central Jersey. The club dates back to the days in the early 20th century when canoe clubs were all the rage around here. Cranford, with numerous backyards abutting the Rahway River, was once referred to as the “Venice of New Jersey.”

It was a delightful two hours on the placid Rahway, paddling our way along while dragonflies followed us, fish swam around us, birds chirped at us and a deer glanced over her shoulder while eating on the river bank. But before we get too comfortable, let’s get back to that turtle for a second. When they called us over to their canoe, the boys and their father said they were planning to bring the turtle home as a pet. We nodded our heads and paddled on, knowing that the folks at the canoe club would not be letting these guys walk out of their boat with any pet turtles.

The turtle belonged in the water. Seeing him in some tank in a suburban bedroom would be all wrong. Seeing him trying desperately to climb out of the canoe was bad enough. Sometimes, you need to stay in your native environment.

Watching Joe Torre wearing a Dodgers uniform this weekend felt a little like watching that turtle inside the canoe. Torre looks like a New Yorker, he speaks like a New Yorker, and he did more to bring the Yankees back to prominence than anyone else in the past 15 years. His departure from New York after the 2007 season has been well-documented, and there’s no need to re-hash it here. Joe Girardi has led the Yankees to a world championship as manager, and New York has not fallen apart since Torre left.

Still, some people just don’t look right when they’re away from home. When the Yankees visited the Dodgers this weekend for an interleague series, Torre wore the interlocking “LA” on his cap while the visiting team sported that interlocking “NY.” His team did just fine, going after the Yankees with playoff intensity. Torre has led his club to the postseason each of the past two years, and L.A. is in the thick of another pennant race in 2010. But there are other men on this team who look much more the Southern California type than Torre does.

Take right fielder Andre Ethier, for example. Born in Phoenix, Ethier has that West Coast look – the curly locks dangling from behind his blue cap, the long sideburns, the on-again, off-again beard. Of course, it’s just a look – there’s nothing relaxed about Ethier’s effort on the field, as he’s quickly become the Dodgers’ premier clutch hitter.

But when you watch Ethier suit up for a game on another gorgeous night in Chavez Ravine, he looks like a player who’d be very comfortable hanging out on Venice Beach during an off-day. As for Torre, he looks like a man who’s dying for a decent slice of pizza and a copy of the New York Daily News.

Joe Torre has proven, to anyone who didn’t believe it, that his managerial magic extends beyond the South Bronx. He is holding together a franchise with serious ownership issues and gearing Los Angeles for another run at a division title. I hope he succeeds, and then I hope he gets out of Dodger blue this autumn.

Venice Beach is no more suited to Torre than that canoe was to the turtle we saw last week. Get that turtle back into the Venice of New Jersey; bring Torre back to the City That Never Sleeps. There’s a No. 6 to retire, and a lot of fans who never got to say goodbye.

Throw Away the Book (One Sixty-Two: Day 55)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Fifty-Five: John Jaso, Tampa Bay Rays

I was leaving a local library yesterday when I passed a display of old books for sale. The last thing our house needs is another book. But of course I stopped.

And I almost walked away. But then an old hardcover caught my eye: How to Steal a Pennant, by Maury Wills with Don Freeman. I knew that Wills was an infielder and base-stealing master with the Los Angeles Dodgers back in the 1960s and ‘70s. I also had a faint recollection of Wills managing the Seattle Mariners for a while in the early ‘80s. But as I looked at the book, I realized that it consisted of Wills’ philosophy on managing – before he ever had the chance to do so. Published in 1976, How to Steal a Pennant featured a retired ballplayer’s ideas on how to manage baseball better than the men he’d been watching in the dugouts while working as a TV analyst.

Wills’ No. 1 advice for managers was simple: Throw away “the book” that tells you how you’re supposed to manage a game. Instead, Wills advised, think outside the box – er, book. If you’re losing a game by four runs, Wills wrote, don’t wait for the grand slam. Chip away – bunt a runner over, scrape for runs here and there, and claw your way back into the game. Don’t hesitate to steal bases, don’t hesitate to let a lefty reliever throw to a righty hitter, and don’t hesitate to throw a strike on an 0-2 count.

I’m sure that when he watches ballgames today, Maury Wills admires the work of Joe Maddon, manager of the Tampa Bay Rays. There is no “book” in the Maddon managerial code. This is a man who starts a catcher in the leadoff spot, even though that catcher – rookie John Jaso – has just one stolen base. So why does Jaso lead off? The reason is simple: Because he gets on base 40 percent of the time. To Maddon, getting on first is more important than one’s ability to steal second.

But that doesn’t mean Maddon hesitates to let his runners steal bases. Not at all. Outfielders Carl Crawford and B.J. Upton both have more than 20 steals already this year, and slugging third baseman Evan Longoria has swiped 10 bases. The Rays lead their league in stolen bases by far this year.

And thinking different doesn’t stop there for the Rays – while Maddon has a bona fide closer this year, he hasn’t hesitated in the past to use a closer-by-committee approach to finishing games. Rather than put the game in one man’s hands, Maddon has let the best matchup determine who finishes the game. Just go with what works.

This time of year, we hear a lot of graduation speeches encouraging young people to take the road not taken. Maury Wills was encouraging that nearly a quarter-century ago. I found his book, and heard his advice to throw away “the book.” Joe Maddon hears this advice, too. And he follows it. Maybe that’s why no team in baseball has a better record this year than the Rays.

Diligence, Mischief & Funk (One Sixty-Two: Day 54)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Fifty-Four: Manny Ramirez, Los Angeles Dodgers

“Daddy, does my hair look funky?” Chelsea asked.

I hesitated. Does a 5-year-old want her hair to look funky? Or was she looking to make sure it was un-funky? And if you’re settling into bed, as Chelsea was when she asked this, why does it matter?

Ah, the mysteries of life. Take the innocence of a preschooler, mix it with some Disney Channel exposure, toss in an impending summer solstice, and life becomes a bit funkier than usual. At least Chelsea’s sister, lying above her, was more focused on the book she was reading than on her bedtime appearance.

Katie’s attention was on the task at hand – read a story, learn something new, then doze off to sleep. Chelsea was more of a Tigger tonight – bouncing around her bed while talking about her hair and the fact that she had no water bottle. It was an interesting contrast in bedtime behavior.

It’s hard sometimes to balance what you want to do with what you need to do. Manny Ramirez is one of the most talented baseball players ever to walk the earth. He has hit 551 home runs since his first big-league appearance 17 years ago. He’s driven in more than 1,800 runs, compiled a .313 career batting average, claimed a pair of World Series titles and led 11 different teams to the playoffs. Astounding success and skills.

Manny knows how to get the job done, no doubt. But the man can also veer off the straight and narrow. He can zone out in the field, offer curious quotes to reporters, upset the occasional teammate, and even put a substance in his body that’s a bit more illicit than Chelsea’s water. And the hair – most definitely funky. Manny Being Manny – it’s sort of like panning out to a side view of the girls’ bunk bed, and seeing diligence and mischief together in one frame.

Chelsea was still bouncing and squirming by 9:00. So I told her a story, about a starfish who washes ashore and panics that he’ll dry up on the sand. But then a heroic crab waddles onto the beach, shimmies beneath the starfish, and carries his friend back into the water.

She liked the story, and began to calm down. It was time to rest that hair on the pillow and dream of heroes. Crabs carrying their friends in the summer; Manny carrying his team in the fall. No more talk of funk; just some good sleep in the bunk.

Trumpets & Grunts (One Sixty-Two: Day 49)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Forty-Nine: Jonathan Broxton, Los Angeles Dodgers

Lights flickering. Water falling. Elephants lifting their trunks and trumpeting. Gorillas beating their chests and grunting. Giant butterflies hanging on the walls. A crocodile catching pennies.

It’s just another night at Rainforest Café, and we stopped in tonight to celebrate Chelsea’s preschool graduation. What better way to relish her preschool diploma than with burgers and make-believe jungle animals? Chelsea and Katie love the place and ask to go whenever a special occasion arises; as for their parents, I think it’s safe to say we prefer a dining atmosphere minus the sound of stampedes. But it was not our night, and Chelsea enjoyed every flicker and sprinkle and grunt.

Eating your dinner in a fake rainforest is, to say the least, disorienting. It’s kind of like stepping up to the plate in the ninth inning against Jonathan Broxton of the Los Angeles Dodgers. You’ve been working hard and concentrating on the field for nearly three hours, you’re behind by a run or two, and now you’ve got to figure out a way to handle nearly 100 miles per hour of hard, country fastball, exploding from the right hand of a 6-foot-4, 295-pound man who’s been sitting in the bullpen all night – just waiting to eat you alive.

Most batters, trained to hit at the highest level baseball knows, cannot touch the man. Throughout his career, Broxton has struck out 12 batters per nine innings. He saved 36 games last year and has already notched 16 saves this season. As he turns 26 next week, Broxton finds himself officially among the elite relief pitchers in the game.

Batters don’t necessarily seek to thrive against Broxton; merely surviving is in some ways a victory. Popping up, for instance, or grounding out. At least you saw something up there.

I’m not sure exactly what I saw at Rainforest Café tonight – I think there was a fake snake involved somewhere, and a lot of live fish. But I did walk out in the end, and I can see straight and hear once again.

Chelsea loved it, as always. Maybe she’s immune to the grunts. And the fastballs. Send her up against Broxton. She can bring the elephant’s trunk with her. Try to throw it past this, Jon. We’ll see who gets to beat their chest in the end.

Tell Us a Story, Vin (One Sixty-Two: Day 24)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Twenty-Four: Matt Kemp, Los Angeles Dodgers (via Vin Scully, Dodgers broadcasting booth)

The technological revolution of this 21st century has changed more aspects of our life than we can count. As we review and prioritize the list of ways our life has changed over the past 20 years, “access to baseball announcers from other teams” is probably No. 200,000 on that list. Nothing world-changing about it, for sure. But for some of us, it’s kinda neat.

As a child, my baseball-announcing ken was limited to the Yankees and Mets crews, as well as the men who brought me ABC’s Monday Night Baseball and NBC’s Saturday Game of the Week. Toss in Mel Allen’s voice for This Week in Baseball, and that was it.

So I didn’t hear the late Ernie Harwell calling games in Detroit, nor did I catch Harry Caray singing to the masses from Wrigley Field in Chicago. Nor did I get to hear Jack Buck and his Cardinals broadcasts, nor Bob Prince and his Pittsburgh Pirates games.

In 2010, however, the baseball fan can become much more familiar with other teams’ announcers. You can buy a package that gives you access to all of Major League Baseball’s games via the Internet or the TV. You also can listen to other teams via satellite radio. Finally, you can tune into the MLB Network, and watch as the station drops in on the live action of games for a few minutes at a time – local announcers and all.

What this means, for a baseball fan who doesn’t live in the greater Los Angeles area, is that you now have access to Vin Scully. And that is probably No. 1 on the list of most important changes that technology has brought to the world of baseball storytelling.

This year marks the 61st year that Vin Scully, now 82, has been broadcasting Dodgers games. He started in 1950, alongside the legendary Red Barber. He has told fans about the exploits of generations of Dodgers: from Jackie Robinson and Duke Snider, to Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, to Steve Garvey and Ron Cey, to Orel Hershiser and Fernando Valenzuela, to Mike Piazza and Eric Gagne, all the way to Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp.

Of course, the quantity of years is one thing; the quality of work is quite another. What makes Vin Scully the greatest baseball announcer of all time – bar none – is his ability to tell the stories behind the game. Scully knows that baseball has a certain pace to it, one best suited for conversations. That’s what fans do when they’re at a game – they talk with each other. So Scully gathers loads of anecdotes, and he fills up his three hours with storytelling.

Matt Kemp, therefore, becomes much more than a name in a box score. The Dodgers centerfielder and budding superstar is a human being to Vin Scully, not a fantasy-baseball stud. Scully tells us the back stories that we haven’t heard about Kemp, and his mellifluous voice makes those stories sound like the most important things we’ve heard all day. As a man who grew up in the years before TV, Scully knows how to paint a picture for us, rather than leaning heavily on instant replay and high-tech graphics. Scully knows that all of us love to hear a good story, no matter what our age.

So we close our eyes, listen to that golden voice, and see so much more of Matt Kemp than any camera can give us. For 61 years, Vin Scully has been giving us this pleasure. He is a national treasure, without a doubt. And the only proper way to thank him is, of course, to keep listening.

Let's Play Some Ball

They asked me to write a baseball preview for the school newspaper back in my sophomore year of college. I had earned that job because, in a writers’ poll the year before, I had chosen the Cincinnati Reds to win the 1990 World Series. I was a big Lou Piniella fan, and he had taken over as Reds manager. In October of ‘90, my colleagues at the paper weren’t the only ones surprised that I had gotten this pick right – the entire baseball world watched in amazement as the Reds swept an Oakland A’s team that seemed nearly flawless.

So in 1991, as I penned my baseball preview, I felt it my responsibility to make another surprise pick. I liked the young talent on the Chicago White Sox, so I chose them to defeat the also young and talented Montreal Expos in the World Series.

That didn’t happen.

However … it did start a trend in my April baseball picks – I began falling in love with teams that were filled with young talent. And, inevitably, I was a year or two early in predicting these teams’ postseason success. It wasn’t 1991 that the White Sox made it back to the playoffs, but 1993. It wasn’t ’91 that Montreal made its big move, but 1994, a season that never saw the playoffs due to the absence of a labor agreement.

I gushed over the Milwaukee Brewers in 2005, ’06 and ’07, only to see them make the playoffs in ’08. I liked the Oakland A’s in ’05, but they made the American League Championship Series in 2006. I chose the Cleveland Indians to make the World Series in ’06, yet it was the following year that saw them come within a game of the Fall Classic. I picked the Phillies to make the World Series in ’07, only to see them win it in ’08. I picked the Mets to win it all last year, so that’s good news for the guys in Queens.

And so, as baseball’s regular season begins tonight, I present you with my picks for this year. As you read, I’d suggest you pencil these teams in for 2010.

American League: It seems that the New York Yankees will do whatever is needed to win the American League East this year, even if that means paying Sandy Koufax to find a fountain of youth and return to the mound. I’ll pick the Yanks for the division, with the Tampa Bay Rays and their scintillating young talent edging out the Boston Red Sox for the wild card. In the AL Central, I think the Detroit Tigers are the most professional ballclub in an evenly matched division, with the Indians right behind them and the Kansas City Royals paving the way for a return to postseason play in 2010. In the West, I am concerned about injuries to the Los Angeles Angels’ pitching rotation, but in a weak division I imagine they’ll trade for pitching if they need to do so. It is possible, however, that the Texas Rangers will be a much stronger team than most are predicting they will be. I like the Yankees defeating the Tigers in the Division Series, and the Angels outpitching the Rays. In the ALCS, I see the Yankees exorcising some demons by finally defeating the Angels.

National League: The Mets and Phillies both have tremendous ballclubs this year, and therefore they will both make the playoffs. I see the gritty, confident Phillies edging out New York for the division crown, but with both teams being well aware by mid-September that they’re playoff-bound. In the NL Central, the Chicago Cubs have tremendous pitching coupled with weaknesses in their lineup, but it will be enough to hold off the Brewers or whoever lands in second place. In the NL West, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks will duel it out in a very tight race, with the Rockies making some noise back in third place. But the Dodgers are just too talented a team, and if pitching is a problem, they’ll make the necessary moves as the season ensues. I like the Dodgers over the Mets in a classic Division Series matchup, and the Cubs edging out the Phillies in another close contest. The Dodgers will be far too much for the Cubs to handle in a seven-game championship series, putting Joe Torre’s group in the Series.

What a matchup: Yankees versus Dodgers; Torre versus the club he managed to four titles. The two historic franchises will meet in the World Series for the first time in 28 years, and they will be so evenly matched that the series can’t help but go seven. The Dodgers’ young players will find intestinal fortitude they never knew they had, and Torre will keep them calm amidst the nerve-wracking intensity of the Fall Classic. Matt Kemp will provide the big blow for Los Angeles in Game Seven, and the City of Angels will place a permanent halo over Torre’s head, as he leads the Dodgers to their first title in 21 years.

So there you have it – one man’s humble predictions in the newness of spring. As the season begins, it is indeed true that every team is tied for first place right now. But if you notice my picks, you’ll see that the Rays and Tigers are the only teams from mid-sized markets that I chose for this year’s playoffs. More than getting my World Series picks right, I’d love to see close races, involving teams with a variety of salary scales. That would be some real baseball.