Bill Russell, Vin Scully: Two giants leave the stadium
by Paul Teetor
Back in the day – way back in the day, like 500 years ago – some underpaid sportswriter hack named Willie “The Bard” Shakespeare laid out the raw facts of life, for athletes and non-athletes alike: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.”
For two varied and very different men who played huge parts in the LA sports scene, this week provided the stage for their last act: departure from this mortal coil.
Vin Scully was the greatest storyteller in all of sports, ever. Bill Russell was the greatest winner in all of sports, ever. Not just Los Angeles sports, mind you – in all of sports, anywhere, any time.
As former Yankees Manager Casey Stengel – another guy who knew something about winning – used to say, you could look it up. Scully wove his verbal magic for an astounding 67 years, and Russell led his Boston Celtics team to 11 NBA titles in his 13 years as a player, from 1957 to 1969. Both records are unmatched, or even challenged.
And by a simple twist of fate Scully and Russell will be forever linked because they died in the same week, the first week of August 2022. Russell was 88 and Scully 94.
The sad week started late Sunday when news of Russell’s death spread with the speed of a viral Tik-Tok video, quickly pushing aside every other current story on the front pages: endless war, devastating floods, global pandemics, Trump scheming and Biden quarantining.
For a few hours at least the 24/7 culture war shout fest receded into background noise as the sporting world stopped to pay tribute to the man who, in his own way, was as much a civil rights pioneer as baseball’s Jackie Robinson and boxing’s Muhammad Ali.
Lakers owner Jeannie Buss sent out a heartfelt tweet right after the news broke about the man who broke the hearts of Lakers fans so many times.
Seven times, to be exact.
“Bill Russell was a treasure,” Buss said.
Other Laker icons quickly joined in the rising chorus.
“He terrorized everybody for 13 years,” said Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Jerry West, who knew him better than any Laker because he lost to him in six NBA Finals from 1962-69 – twice going to a closerthanthis seventh game – said the two greats had become close friends in the decades after their bitter rivalry had ended.
“This is one of our darker days,” West said after the news broke. “Bill was not my rival. He was my friend.”
West said Russell’s social activism – working to ensure better treatment of Black athletes, pointing out racism whenever he spotted it – had helped America confront its racist past and work hard to overcome its racist hangover.
“He was one of those unique people who comes along as a difference maker when a difference maker is needed,” West said. “He went through so much and handled it so well. I admired him so much as a human being.”
West cited Russell’s outspokenness in defense of Muhammad Ali’s stance against the military draft, the basketball clinics he held in Mississippi after civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated, and his boycott of a game in which he and his black teammates were denied entrance to the motel where the team was staying.
“He was born for those moments,” West said. “In some respects, what he did off the court was more magnified than what he did on the court.”
Then the week got even worse for LA Sports fans with the news of Scully’s passing. There has been so much written about him and his Brooklyn-to-Los Angeles career that there’s little left to say that hasn’t been said. The LA Times even published a 10-page special section devoted to his life and career.
So All Ball will keep it simple: Goodbye and Good Night, Vinnie.
You were the greatest sports announcer of all time and always will be.
Dodgers strike out
Yes, the Dodgers are the hottest team in major league baseball. They now lead all teams in wins with 74.
And yes, the Dodgers just swept a 3-game series from the San Diego Padres.
And yes, the Padres have emerged as the biggest threat to their Western Division dominance, eclipsing the San Francisco Giants, who won it by a single game last season but are now struggling with a record of 53-55.
So, a three-game sweep in August over their closest division rival is a good Dodgers omen for October games that actually mean something.
Despite all that positive news for the Boys in Blue, however, it says here that the Dodgers made a huge mistake this week by failing to trade for Juan Soto, one of the three best young players in all of baseball. The other two are Ronald Acuna Jr. of the Atlanta Braves and Fernando Tatis of the Padres.
Then that mistake – their failure to be bold and aggressive — was compounded when the Padres jumped into the breach and did what the Dodgers refused to do by offering the Washington Nationals four of their top minor league prospects in exchange for Soto.
A couple of big-picture things are now clear. First, both the Dodgers and the Padres are definitely going to make the playoffs.
And second, these two California coastal teams are probably going to meet at some point
in the playoffs. For the Dodgers’ sake, let’s hope it doesn’t happen until the League Championship Series. Losing to the Padres in the LCS would be bad enough, but losing to them in a wild-card game or the League Divisional Series would be devastating.
Soto’s history illustrates why they should have offered whatever it was that the Nats were asking for in exchange for Soto.
Consider: Soto, 23, made his major league debut in 2018 and was named the runner-up in the voting for National League Rookie of the Year.
In 2019 he was a key part of the Nats’ first World Series championship team.
In 2020 he won the National League batting title with a .351 average. He also won the Silver Slugger Award that year and again in 2021.
He was named to the All-Star team last season and again this season.
In other words, he is on the fast track to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Players like that rarely come on the open market, but the Nats decided to trade him last month after he turned down a $440 million contract over 15 years.
He is still under contract for two more years after this season, so if the Dodgers had acquired him they would have had the opportunity to see what a difference he could make in the postseason over the next three years.
Then, if they liked what they saw, they would have had to pony up at least a half-billion-dollar contract to keep him with the Dodgers into and past his prime.
There’s a simple reason the Dodgers have won only one World Series title in the last decade despite winning the NL West eight times in nine years: lack of timely hitting.
Soto would have solved that problem — or gone down swinging.
Now, instead, Soto will be showing his stuff for San Diego – and they will be the ones deciding if he is good enough to merit a half-a-billion-dollar contract
This was an opportunity for the Dodgers to solidify their future for the next decade and beyond. Instead, they whiffed on a hanging curveball.
That’s the kind of mistake that always comes back to bite a team in the posterior.
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com Follow: @paulteetor. ER