Vin Scully on coronavirus responses: “I think people are especially jumping at the opportunity to help each other.”

Legendary announcer Vin Scully is quarantined along with the rest of California in response to concerns about the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, but he’s making the best of it. The 92-year-old Scully spoke to Bill Plaschke of The Los Angeles Times for a piece published Sunday night, and discussed how he and his wife Sandi are staying in (with even visits with family held at a distance), how he’s finding joy in watching old musicals like Singin’ In The Rain and The Music Man, and his memories of past struggles like the Great Depression and World War II. But maybe his most notable comments are on the good he’s seeing from some responses to this:

“From depths of depression we fought our way through World War II, and if we can do that, we can certainly fight through this. I remember how happy and relieved and thrilled everybody was … when they signed the treaty with Japan, and the country just danced from one way or another. It’s the life of the world, the ups and downs, this is a down, we’re going to have to realistically accept it at what it is and we’ll get out of it, that’s all there is to it, we will definitely get out of it.”

“A lot of people will look at it, it might bring them closer to their faith, they might pray a little harder, a little longer, there might be other good things to come out of it,” he says. “And certainly, I think people are especially jumping at the opportunity to help each other, I believe that’s true, so that’s kind of heartwarming, with all of it, it brings out some goodness in people, and that’s terrific, that’s terrific.”

Scully also said “somewhere along the line, I hope and pray that baseball will start up,” and that the return of baseball would be like “a rainbow after the storm.” And while that seems unlikely to happen for a while, there certainly are many who are as eager as him for baseball to return. But until then, it’s definitely notable to see Scully keeping his spirits high and finding the good in this. And it’s interesting to hear his comments on how he’s impressed by people working to help those in need. That’s definitely a good message to spread.

[The Los Angeles Times]