For this SoCal kid, the voice of his youth

Vin Scully, corrupter of youth?

I don’t want to rain on Vinny’s farewell parade, but it’s true.

I was a good kid, went to church, behaved myself at school, kept my room neat.

Then Scully came to Los Angeles in 1958. Brought the Dodgers with him. Led me astray.

It wasn’t all Scully’s fault. Blame technology, in the form of the transistor radio, a device that hit the market in 1957. It was the size of pack of cigarettes, made in Japan, and it let you to take your music or your baseball with you wherever you went.

The Dodgers and Vinny hit Los Angeles like a tsunami. The Dodgers were a great, historic and exciting team, and Vin Scully was an instant sensation. He was the Dodgers’ Sinatra, the smooth and soulful voice you played as you were falling in love — with girls (Sinatra) or baseball (Scully).

When you went to a Dodgers game at the Coliseum, Scully’s voice was all around you, floating out of thousands of transistor radios. You sat in the warm night air, watched incredible ball and listened to Scully poetry.

And you needed Scully be- cause the Coliseum was so vast (95,000 fans!) that half the people couldn’t see the game.

Every fan favors his or her home-team announcer. But Scully, man, his vibe was perfect. He was laid-back, upbeat, enthusiastic and so cool.

Scully worked solo, no twoman repartee, just him talking to me. He had a broadcast partner, but they worked separately — Scully did the first three and last three innings.

Scully loved baseball — he adored Willie Mays, he nicknamed Hank Aaron “Bad Henry” — but he the Dodgers. They won the ’59 pennant, beating the Milwaukee Braves in a best-of-three playoff, and as the last out was recorded, Scully proclaimed triumphantly, “We go to Chicago!”

By thunder, I was going to go with them, via my transistor radio. Problem: All World Series games were day games. Games 1 and 2 were Thursday and Friday. Cutting school was not an option for this Goody Twoshoes.

So I did the sneakiest thing I’ve ever done. I cracked open an old hard-bound book and cut a hole big enough for my radio, which had a cord and an earbud. While my seventh-grade teacher Mr. Sweeney droned on about some crap, I listened to Vinnie. Sweeney, that irascible old cuss, never caught on.

My mom knew about the book, and I asked her the other day why she allowed me to defy old man Sweeney. She said, “The Dodger games were important.”

Game 3 was Sunday. Church. No problem. I had my good book. Reverend Scully delivered up a heck of a sermon, featuring St. Don Drysdale smiting the Sox.

God overlooked my sin by letting the Dodgers win, 3-1. Maybe Vin put in a good word for me.