Drabble cartoonist's tribute to Vin Scully

During the first round of the National League playoffs, a Drabble comic strip in newspapers nationwide might have mystified fans in ither places, but not in Los Angeles. When the woman of the house complains to Ralph that they bought a 70-inch high-definition TV in order to watch sports, and now he's turning the TV off and listening to baseball on the radio, Ralph explains: "It's known as the Vin Scully factor." Cartoonist Kevin Fagan talks about it on his blog, at the Think Blue LA blog, and in Tom Hoffarth's column in the Daily News.

It may have been just one amidst the thousands of “Drabble” comic strips Fagan has drawn over the last 34 years, but the understated tribute to Vin Scully is likely resonated so much so among Dodger fans that it quickly found a spot of honor on many refrigerator doors, probably held up in place by an “L.A.” logo magnet.

“It’s the way I’ve watched Dodger playoff games for as long as I can remember,” said the 57-year old father of three from his home in Mission Viejo. “The last time it happened (2009), I can remember how frustrating it got trying to listen to him on radio with the delay (matched up against the network TV video), so I just turned the TV off. I’d rather listen to him than watch with any other announcers.”

So this is a storyline Fagan has been sitting on for four years?

Not only that, consider he had to submit the strip six weeks before it actually published in some 200 papers across the nation, including all of those in the Los Angeles News Group.

That meant Fagan had to take a calculated risk in early September when he thought the Dodgers would actually be in the post season. It ended up landing on the off day between Games 2 and 3 from the Dodgers-Braves NL Divisional Series, on Saturday, Oct. 5.

“Talk about grace under pressure,” Scully said when told about how Fagan pulled that one off.