How ’bout them Dodgers!! YES! Here’s to the Dodgers! MY baseball team. OUR baseball team. Win or lose, Dodger Blue forever!! OK, we all know that Steve was a member of the Red Sox Nation, but he had a LOT of room in his heart for the Dodgers. Joe Quasarano, “Vinny” Scully, Elaina Habeeb Fote, Don Drysdale, …. Love and respect.
The Dodgers were central to our lives. We met at Dodger Stadium. It was a Tuesday afternoon – June 29, 1993. I was making a KTLA televised presentation to Oral Hershiser on behalf of Very Special Arts California. Steve was supposed to shoot it. At the same time, he was shooting a special about the players’ wives. Somehow, he had to “work my shoot in”. He made me wait, and wait, and wait, and…. I got furious, told him off, and the rest is history.
He excelled at what he did. Witness – his Emmy, which says:
“1993 LOS ANGELES AREA EMMY AWARDS
SPORTS SERIES
LOS ANGELES DODGERS: PRE-GAME
Steve Orlandella, Producer
KTLA”
And, another Emmy, which says:
“1997 LOS ANGELES EMMY AWARDS
SPORTS SPECIAL
HERE’S TO YOU, MR. ROBINSON
STEVE ORLANDELLA, Producer
KTLA”
Steve loved the game. Always did.
He loved stadiums, sound trucks, crews, Vin Scully, travelling from city to city, going to games, producing the games, the camaraderie. All of it. He subscribed to baseball channels in the U.S. and in France and on the Internet. He had baseball games on television or on his computer, both going at all hours of the day and night. He couldn’t get enough. And, today, he would love watching this world series, no matter what he had to do to see it.
So, here’s to the Dodgers, here’s to the World Series, here’ to Steve, and here’s to Steve’s gift to all of us, THE GAME. Get his book. Put it on your bookshelf. It contains his love of the game, his flaws, his knowledge, his trivia, his personality, his wry comments, all there, written in his unique style.
JAYSPEAK 