We’ve all seen it a million times … or more. It precedes the greatest sports quote of all time by Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully:

“In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.”

It is, of course, the ‘improbable’ home run by nearly crippled Dodgers outfielder Kirk Gibson off of Oakland A’s Hall of Fame closer Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series on October 15, 1988, at Dodger Stadium, and it is best remembered by the taillights of an undoubtedly frustrated Dodger fan, who made the terrible mistake of leaving early.

We have seen that video – ad nauseam – for 32 years. Thankfully, and meaning absolutely no disrespect whatsoever to Kirk Gibson, we don’t have to see it anymore; unless, of course, we choose to.

“Vin Scully and I were talking yesterday, and I told him ‘I’m happy for two groups of people,” Dodgers president Stan Kasten recently said on MLB Network Radio. “The first are writers, who can stop talking about ’88, alright? We can stop talking about that every night. And the second group are those of us who were here at the games, because now we have another highlight clip to play instead of Kirk Gibson, alright? So that’s what it’s like. To be able to change the script on those things is really important.”

That new script, written during the 2020 World Series between the Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays at Globe Life Field in Arlington, TX, is chock full of highlight clips of guys named Corey Seager, Kiké Hernandez, Austin Barnes, AJ Pollock, Max Muncy, Will Smith, and Justin Turner, who was the only guy on the Dodgers 28-man World Series roster (and 40-man roster, for that matter), who was even born when Gibby hit his famous taillight home run, although only three years old at the time.

And then there are highlight clips of Dodgers ace and future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, and 24-year-old Julio Urías, who posted a phenomenal 4-0 record and 2.17 ERA during the 2020 postseason, including a remarkable 2.1-inning save in World Series-clinching Game-6 in which he struck out four of the seven batters he faced,

Although a new script has been written and there are a number of new highlight clips that are now a part of Dodger lore, I would imagine that we will occasionally still see Gibson’s famous taillight home run from time to time.

…but now only if we choose to.

Play Ball!

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