May 8, 1960:  The headline would make any Dodger fan shudder: "Vince Scully Turns Back Pages to Worst Moments Before Mike."

The story by The Times' Jeane Hoffman actually was an entertaining
conversation with the Dodgers' broadcaster about his career. The Dodgers
had been knocked off the radio for three innings during a game at the
Coliseum April 30 so the story's hook allowed Scully to tell about other
mishaps.

The "Golden Gargle?" Are you kidding me?

"My first spoken words over WTOP (in Washington D.C.) were 'thummer sundershowers' in place of summer thundershowers and I've said 'coming up in the bottom of the EYETH—a combination of the eighth and ninth,' " Scully said.

He told of an early televised game when he suggested the cameraman switch to a shot of a Dodger coach, Jake Pitler, who jumped up and down whenever a Dodger scored or stole a base. But when Duke Snider walked to force in a run, "I'll never forget it. Jake just stood there and scratched himself."

And there was the night in Brooklyn when the game was stopped because of fog and Scully was on TV.

"So for a full hour I desperately stalled," he told Hoffman. "I showed the fans how to keep score, read them statistics out of the yearbook, did everything but tell bedtime stories."

He might have been stalling but it sounds like an hour well spent for any lucky viewer.

–Keith Thursby