There’s an impishly impressionable slice of Bob Costas’ “Wonder Years” period in the early 1960s that comes with Vin Scully’s narration attached to it.
For reasons still not clear — his father, John, either took a new electrical engineering job or was trying to escape from bookies looking to even a score on gambling debts — the Costas family left New York one day and moved to an apartment in Redondo Beach.
To that point, Costas’ entrée to baseball was Mel Allen and Red Barber on Yankees games, with radio the preferred experience. Once in Southern California, the 8-year-old could immerse himself in the Scully Experience that included, as many people could attest, sneaking the transistor under the pillow to follow the conclusion of the Dodgers games still going on at the Coliseum.