i'm sure it's a very pleasant good evening, wherever he may be

and i know exactly where he is - vin scully is the grand marshal of the 125th tournament of roses parade in pasadena today.  if memory serves, that means that the dodgers' hall of fame broadcaster will participate in the coin toss before the rose bowl.  i never did make it to the rose parade in all my socal years, but i did help decorate a float one year, and i attended a rose bowl game in the early '90's (michigan beat washington).  angela lansbury was the grand marshal of the parade that year, for what it's worth.

here are some cards of vinny that i picked up last year - first up is his base from 2013 panini cooperstown

the back of which provides the line score of the 1988 world series game 1

yes, scully is paid to be objective.  i wish more broadcasters would earn their money that way, too.

here are some parallels of vin.  i am not sure what they are called, but i snagged 'em anyway.  this one is green-ish

and this one is more blue.

i might as well show a few more of the dodgers i picked up from the set, like zack wheat

wheat is a guy that doesn't seem to get a whole lot of attention when it comes to the dodger franchise celebrating its past.  it seems to me that the franchise focuses mainly on the players who fell within the walter o'malley regime (1951 through 1979).  this makes some sense because the o'malleys owned the team until it was sold to fox, and they did well to establish and market the franchise.  fox didn't give a rip, and the mccourts didn't seem to care too much about the team's history either.  today, the new ownership seems to understand the importance of connecting different generations of fans, but i'm not sure that we will see a brooklyn 'b' for wheat out in the pavilions among the retired numbers the way that the giants used to have the 'ny' circles for the likes of christy mathewson and john mcgraw on the walls at candlestick.

here's jackie robinson

in a kansas city monarch uniform

and here's pee wee reese

which means that duke snider can't be too far behind.

the induction inserts are pretty cool.  duke joined the hall of fame in 1980.  he was the first dodger inducted since sandy koufax in 1972.  unfortunately, there wasn't a koufax card in the set.