Vin Scully, 83, has been with the Dodgers since 1950, has seen everything that can basically happen on a baseball field (for better and worse), and entered the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982 as the recipient of the Ford Frick Award, given to venerated media members for service to baseball. Nevertheless Scully is a Dodgers employee, and so the people running the Dodgers’ organization into the ground felt compelled to send a survey to Dodgers season-ticket holders, asking them to rate Scully’s announcing abilities in six categories.
A season-ticket holder emailed the survey to TJ Simers of the Los Angeles Times. He wrote, “On a scale of 1 to 5, They wanted my opinion of Vin Scully in the following eight areas: 1. Knowledge of baseball; 2. Knowledge of Dodgers organization; 3. Objectivity; 4. Accuracy of calls; 5. Storytelling ability; 6. Focus on the game; 7. Style; 8. Overall performance.”
Regardless of how you score Scully, the more pertinent issue is what the Dodgers intended to do with the results of the survey. From the response they gave to Simers, the answer appears to be nothing, as Simers wrote, “a team spokesman said Vin’s job is his as long as he wants it.'”
Then why bother with the survey?