This is it.

Today is the day that every Dodger fan – every baseball fan – has dreaded for days, weeks, months, years, even decades.

Today is the day that Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully will call his final game … ever. And make no mistake about it, it will be a very emotional day for everyone.

No matter how much we have tried to prepare ourselves for this day, it will be emotional, painful even. It will be like saying goodbye to our best friend, our grandfather, our father for the final time.

Regardless of how he does it, when Vin Scully signs off today it is really going to hurt.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

In the simplest of terms, Dodgers baseball will never be the same; not ever. Oh sure, the game will go on – just as it has for more than 147 years. But the way it is told, described and shared with us will never be the same. We will never again be blessed to have only one broadcaster in the booth calling the game – that will end with the final out of today’s final Dodger game of the 2016 season … forever. Instead, we will be forced to listen to two and more likely three self proclaimed broadcasters calling games in a way that makes it all about themselves instead of having every one of us hanging on each and every word of the greatest broadcaster and storyteller of all time, while always knowing what the score and the count is.

I will not deny nor dispute it. In fact, on this most painful day as a lifelong Dodger and Vin Scully fan, I proudly acknowledge that like so many others over the past seven decades, I have been so very very blessed to have become friends with Vin and Sandi Scully through my time spent in the appropriately named Vin Scully Press Box. I am among those personally chosen by God Himself to be blessed to receive a “Hello Ron” and a “Goodnight Ron” (nearly) every day or evening spent in the press box from the kindest, most selfless and thoughtful man I have ever known.

Thank you for being there for my entire life Vin.
(Photo credit Jon SooHoo)

Thank you, Vin. Just thank you.