The plan was to write a tribute to John Vukovich, but there is just no way to do it within the confines of this or any other web site. There just isn't enough server space to do justice to what the man meant to every facet of baseball in Philadelphia. Oh, I started to write, alright, but just couldn't rein it in. yesterday I wrote more than 3,000 words with the thought of editing it down to something a little more digestible for readers, but when I sat down to work on it this morning I ended up writing another 3,000 words and I was nowhere close to being finished.
There are just too many stories. Way, way too many stories. If a person is judged by the stories they possess or that others have about them, then John Vukovich was truly the gold standard.
So excuse me while I save whatever I come up with for later. Explaining what John Vukovich meant to the Phillies, the writers that covered the Phillies, and Major League Baseball in Philadelphia is like trying to describe why the sky is blue in 10 words or less. Sure, it might be possible to do, but chances are something is missing.
That said, I'll leave at this: We might not have known it at the time, but John Vukovich was the reason why people go to the ballpark every day. He is also the reason why people sit at home and watch games on TV. It's not just his fingerprints that are all over the franchise, but his blood, sweat, tears and everything else a person can throw into a life spent trying to always do the right thing.
I thought that he was going to be there forever. I thought that 10 years from now I would be able to show up at the ballpark and see him in the third row of seats in the press box holding court with the scouts, scribes, execs and other lifers. I thought that one day they were going to have to go in and drag him out of there.
Going to the ballpark will never be the same ever again.