My Dinners With Vin

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I've had a decent run in my chosen profession, pushing nearly 40 years now. This is all I ever wanted to be when I grew up. I am doing it all right, although I am still not sure about the grown up part. And for 81 home games in the back area of the press dining room at Dodger Stadium, 5:30 p.m. for night games, and 11-ish for day games, here I am having dinner or breakfast with the guy who is the reason I am doing what I do for a living.

The Voice, circa 1957, still in Brooklyn.

Four of us sit down, break bread and shoot the breeze. Billy DeLury, who like Vin, came with the Dodgers from Brooklyn a half-century ago, my radio partner Rick Monday and me.

I am very much the junior partner. We talk some baseball. We talk some traffic — in Los Angeles how long it takes to get from point A to point B, and by what improvised route is often a topic of conversation. We talk about stuff.

Billy sits to my left. Rick to my right. The Voice sits directly across from me. The Voice I grew up listening to on that old Zenith radio 50 years ago. Still avuncular, rhythmic poetic, crisp, clear, and calming. Only it's coming from across the dinner table, instead of my mom's kitchen.

See, I'm still not sure about the growing up part.