Dodgers to honor Jaime Jarrín
Of the countless honors and tributes Jaime Jarrín has received over his 60-year career, the Ford Frick Award at the National Baseball Hall of Fame has been the gold standard for the Dodgers’ iconic Spanish-language broadcaster.
He earned his place among baseball’s greatest voices two decades ago in Cooperstown, N.Y., joining his good friend Vin Scully, Jack Buck, Mel Allen and other greats on the list of legendary broadcasters to win the Ford Frick Award.
On Friday evening at Chavez Ravine, Jarrín receives another deserved spot among baseball’s immortals when he became the 12th member of the Dodgers’ prestigious Ring of Honor at Dodger Stadium.
“It’s the closest to Cooperstown for me,” Jarrín said of the Dodgers’ Ring of Honor. “I’m very excited to be near my good friend Vin Scully in the Ring with all the Dodgers’ Hall of Famers.
“It’s a huge honor that I share with the community. All the honors that I get I want to share with the public, the Latino public that has supported me for 60 years. Sixty years is a lot of years, but it feels like just a couple of decades.”
Immortals
The men in the Dodgers’ Ring of Honor are among the biggest names in baseball history. The list includes men who are considered among the most iconic American figures of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The group includes Jackie Robinson, the man who broke baseball’s color line on April 15, 1947. Scully, God’s gift to baseball broadcasting, is also in the Dodgers’ Ring of Honor along with Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Tommy Lasorda, Jim Gilliam, Don Sutton, Walter Alston, Roy Campanella and Don Drysdale.
Only the greatest of the titans who have worn the Dodgers’ uniform or been in the broadcast booth for the franchise have earned their name or number on the Ring of Honor.
It’s quite fitting that the Dodgers’ longtime Spanish-language broadcaster will become the 12th member of that exclusive fraternity in the Ring of Honor.
Even if you claim that some other Spanish language baseball broadcasters were as good as Jarrín, nobody was better. He is to Spanish-language baseball broadcasts what the brilliant Scully was for folks listening or watching English radio or television broadcasts.
60 Years
Jarrín, who is in his record 60th season calling Dodgers games in Spanish, is the voice generations of Latinos throughout Los Angeles and Southern California associate with baseball. He’s the man who taught many of our immigrant parents about baseball, helping convert diehard soccer fans into avid Dodgers fans.
Many of those brown faces who pack Dodger Stadium and help make the Dodgers the biggest draw in baseball are the second and third generations of the fans who first came to understand Dodger baseball through Jarrín’s poetic voice.
Some of those generations have lost the command of our parents’ and grandparents’ Spanish language over the years, but the love of the Dodgers that our families gained through Jarrín’s broadcasts endures.
Mexican lefthander Fernando Valenzuela is the most iconic Latino player to play for the Dodgers. He remains the greatest Mexican native to have ever played in the majors. Valenzuela is the biggest reason Los Angeles’ large Mexican and Mexican American communities began to pack Dodger Stadium since Fernandomania hit in earnest in 1981 after he made a brief, impressive cameo late in the 1980 season.
At the height of Fernandomania, Jarrín broadcast El Toro’s games and then served as the 1981 National League Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Award winner’s translator.
You cannot tell Valenzuela’s story without Jarrín. Both men deserve credit for turning the Dodgers into one of the most popular sports franchises for Mexican and Mexican Americans, whether living in Los Angeles, around the United States or in Mexico.
“Congratulations to Jaime, my friend and mentor, on this great honor and 60 years with the Dodgers,” said Valenzuela, who is also a Spanish language broadcaster for the Dodgers. “I’ll always remember your kindness and wisdom in helping a teenager acclimate to the majors and then, many years later, showing me the ropes as a rookie broadcaster. You are the true definition of what it means to be a Dodger.”
Jarrín takes his place in the Dodgers’ Ring of Honor 20 years after he became the second of three Spanish-language announcers to earn the Ford Frick Award. Former Yankees and Mets Spanish-language broadcaster Buck Canel earned the honor in 1985, Jarrín in 1998 and Marlins Spanish-language announcer Felo Ramírez became the third to win the Ford Frick Award in 2001.
From Quito to LA
Jarrín, a native of Quito, Ecuador, taught himself the game of baseball after he immigrated to the United States at 19 years old in 1955.
The Dodgers were still playing in Brooklyn at the time. Jarrín had never even seen a baseball game before he got to the United States. Yet, he was at the right place when the Dodgers arrived in Los Angeles in 1958 and began Spanish-language broadcasts in 1959 on KWKW La Mexicana.
Over the next 60 years, Jarrín became a crucial part of the fabric of Dodgers baseball, just as Scully was during his majestic career. He also became one of the most recognizable Latino figures in Los Angeles.
Now the man many of us consider the best Spanish-language baseball broadcaster of all-time finds a home in the Dodgers’ Ring of Honor alongside Scully, the greatest baseball broadcaster to ever call the game in English.
“On behalf of the Dodgers and Dodger fans, it’s my honor to congratulate Jaime on reaching this milestone and thank him for serving as a great representative of our team and the game of baseball for 60 years,” Dodger president and CEO Stan Kasten said. “His place among the franchise greats is undisputed, and we’re proud to welcome him into the team’s Ring of Honor.”
Not surprisingly, Jarrín is adamant that his place in the Ring of Honor isn’t just about himself. It’s also about his devoted wife of 64 years, Blanca, their two remaining sons, Jorge and Mauricio, and their three grandsons – Jorge Andres, Phillip and Stefan.
“It’s not just for me,” Jaime Jarrín said. “It’s for my wife, my sons and my grandsons. I’m most happy because it’s an honor for my family.”
Jaime and Blanca Jarrín had three sons. Their middle son Jimmy died at 29 years old in 1988. Jorge, who is now in the broadcast booth with his famous dad, has had a long, successful broadcasting career.
Mauricio, the youngest of the Jarrín sons, has a Moringa plant farm in Escondido, Calif., near San Diego. He dutifully drives north to Los Angeles to be with his mother when the elder Jarrín is out of the town with the Dodgers.
“He’s the only one who inherited my agriculture genes,” Jarrín said of Mauricio. “I came from an agriculture family in Ecuador.”
Fortunately for longtime Latino Dodgers fans, Jaime Jarrín made his mark in the United States behind the mic in the broadcast booth. Now he’ll be among the franchise’s true immortals in the Dodgers’ Ring of Honor.
This isn’t the end for Jarrín. On Thursday afternoon the Dodgers announced a two-year contract extension with Jarrín, bringing him back to the booth for a 61st and 62nd season in 2019 and 2020.
“I feel very fortunate,” Jarrín said. “because over the years I’ve seen the greatest players in baseball like Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Stan Musial, Sandy Koufax and then later Fernando Valenzuela, Orel Hershiser and now Clayton Kershaw.
“I feel privileged and blessed by God to now be among the Dodger greats,” he said. “I feel privileged to have been with such big luminaries in baseball history.”
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