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.

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.