Dodgers '59

No vhs, no dvd, so how to recollect a great season of a great team? On vinyl! Steve Bailey, Ira Cook and our own Vin Scully present this ‘best of the 1959 Dodgers season’. Side 1 of the album features Roy Campanella night. 93,103 people came to L.A. Coliseum for the Yankees vs. Dodgers exhibition game. Roy’s speech and a short interview with Vin are included on the record. Next up is a lively description of a Willy Mays hit that ends up foul but is given as a home run. A brawl starts and heats up when the umpire decides to change the call to foul again. Vin describes the verbal fight as if it were a boxing match, calls it a ruhbarb, like Red Barber would. it’s Scully at his best!

Side 2 starts with Vin giving the play by play of Koufax fanning 18 to tie the one game strike out record with Bob Feller and break the same pitchers old 2 game strike out record with 31. Then it's on to the simultaneously broadcast of the Dodgers playing a double header against the Pirates at the Coliseum and the Giants at Seal Stadium playing the Phillies, September 11th. Vin does a masterful job keeping the crowd with transistors in the Coliseum and the folks back home listening to their radios up to date with the games. First place was on the line. Next up is the tie-breaker series between the Dodgers and the Milwaukee Braves which ends with Vin saying "we're going to Chicago". And that's where the record ends.

The World Series broadcast would not have fit, I get that, but it's a bit of a let down not having the first World Series celebration for L.A. on this piece of vinyl. I would have loved a second album in the sleeve. Except for this omission it's a great recollection of a historic season.