[doug from upland]

From my childhood, I have two really significant memories. One bad, one great. The bad one was getting a BB gun for Christmas and (no, not shooting my eye out) taking aim at a bird on a wire just goofing around. With a fluke shot, I hit the bird. It disturbs me to this day and perhaps is why I'm a vegetarian.

The good memory was from Mr. Ellis's 5th grade class at Westmont Elementary. He let us watch the 1959 playoffs between the dreaded Braves and the Dodgers. It was getting late so we had to go home. I rode my bike home as fast as I could and caught the last several plays in extra innings. I can still here Vin Scully as if it was this morning. The batter was The Scoonj (I think that was the nickname) Carl Furillo near the end of his career. He had a rifle arm in right field. Gil Hodges was on third. And her was Scully --- "There's a bouncer...over the mound...over second base...Mantilla has it...throws low and wild and HODGES SCORES, WE GO TO CHICAGO!"

[doug from upland]

The most exciting times at Dodger stadium were easily the times when Maurice Morning Wills, Maury Wills, was in his base-stealing prime. One year he stole 104 bases. I think it was 1962 when we lost to the Giants in a playoff. He would get on base and 50,000 would chant "Go, go, go." The stadium rocked and the pitcher was really rocked. He was caught less that 10 times as I remember. It got so bad and was so painful to slide so many times that he had to go to a hypnotist to overcome the problem.

[pariah]

Hey, I remember in 6th grade, the teacher actually brought a radio to class so we could hear the WS games. Vin Sculley cemented my relationship with baseball.

[xzins]

Radio announcers made baseball heroic, epic in every single game. I still love baseball on radio. Baseball announcers are probably responsible for the original "talk radio" monologues. Remember "rain delays" on the radio? Someone should do a radio collage of baseball announcers doing rain delays.