After looking at the choices - Vin Scully, Tommy Lasorda, Sandy Koufax, Fernando Valenzuela, and Steve Garvey - the choice was a no-brainer for true-blue Dodger fans.

Vin Scully, period.

In a day where the two-man booth has taken over Major League Baseball airwaves, everyone's favorite Dodger remains alone in the booth, giving the game more detail than if you were sitting in the stands. In fact, go to any Dodger game and you'll hear a dozen transistor radios in your section, all tuned to Scully's voice, giving you better description of the action than your own eyes at times.

Of course, that's if you're listening to the first two innings. Scully, 74, and in his 52nd season at the Dodger mic, has curbed his radio broadcasts and focused on television. He leaves the final seven innings of radio to Ross Porter and Rick Monday, who also work solo.

The TV broadcast, however, is all Scully.

The 1949 Fordham graduate joined the Brooklyn Dodgers' in 1950, a 23-year-old Irish kid with vibrant red hair. At that time, Red Barber was in the catbird seat (to borrow the Hall of Fame announcer's phrase) while Connie Desmond filled out the trio. As the story goes, Scully, at 8-years-old, said to his teacher that he wanted to be a sports announcer. The rest is history.

Scully earned the Ford C. Frick Award in 1982 and has been on-hand to call some of baseball's most cherished. Hank Aaron's 715th homerun, Sandy Koufax's 4 no-hitters, including his perfect game in 1965, Roy Campanella night at the Los Angeles Coliseum, Kirk Gibson's homerun to win Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, Don Drysdale and Orel Hershiser's scoreless inning streaks, a number of pennants and six World Championships; Scully called them all, giving each game a lyrical quality, often turning baseball into a ballad.

And yet, none of those were as hard as the move to Los Angeles from Brooklyn for the native New Yorker.

"I was not anxious to move," Scully said in a 1999 Internet interview. "I worried a great deal about it. I worried because, first of all, I was born and raised in New York. And I had a job a dream job in New York. So I was not happy about moving at all."

While Scully got his start in Brooklyn, Southern California knows him best.

"We didn't know it at the time," Scully said of calling his first game in Los Angeles. "But when we came out, the city felt it wanted a down the middle approach, a major league approach. And I remember, Walter O'Malley had said to me, 'Don't you think now that we're gonna be all alone, that you should root?' I said 'I don't know how to root'. I've been trained for eight years in Brooklyn not to root."

If you listen to Scully, you'll find the word "we" is not in his baseball vocabulary. There are no "we" need a hit right here," or "we" could use a strike out to get us out of the inning." Scully is a consummate pro. With so many homers broadcasting across the country, Scully's middle of the road approach is a cool breeze on a summer day.

It's also been in Los Angeles where most of his famous quotes have been heard over the past 44 seasons.

• "I would think that the mound at Dodger Stadium right now is the loneliest place in the world." - Said while Koufax sought the second out in the ninth inning of his 1965 perfect game.
• "If you have a sombrero throw it to the sky." - Said after Valenzuela's no-hitter in 1990.
• "During a season where the improbable has happened, the impossible just happened." - Said during a radio call of Bob Gibson's homerun to win Game 1 of the World Series in 1988.
• "These guys should change their names to the Cincinnati Redwoods." - Said after watching the Reds trio of giants (Sean Casey, Adam Dunn, and Austin Kearns) hit during a recent home stand.

Los Angeles sports fans have become spoiled when it comes to sports broadcasts. Chick Hearn with the Lakers, Bob Miller with the Kings, and Scully with the Dodgers, each one with his own unique style and revered in their respective arenas.

One day soon, Scully and the music of baseball will stop and we'll have to change the record. But until then, Dodger fans, enjoy the tune of Vin Scully.

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