Hasta La Ideas

If you click into the official website biography for singer Roger Whittaker, it’s easy to imagine Vin Scully reading the tapestry of words out loud and giving them full flight. Scully did the next closest thing at the end of his final Dodger Stadium home game Sunday afternoon, sharing over the P.A. system with fans a cover version of “Wind Beneath My Wings” recorded many years prior as a gift for his wife Sandi. She was there in the broadcast booth at his side as the song played, this time as Scully’s heartfelt ode to the fans.

Whittaker, 80, was the first to record “Wind Beneath My Wings” in 1982. One of the song’s two co-writers, Larry Henley, passed away in December 2014. The other, Los Angeles native Jeff Silbar, remains active in the music business. In honor and celebration of Scully’s Chavez Ravine reprise, above is a 2011 version recorded by Silbar in nearby Studio City.

Scully has one more week of baseball duty left. And if at AT&T Park on Sunday Oct. 2 he somehow weaves in a cover version of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” we won’t at all be surprised. Watch yesterday’s “Wings” moment here.