The yellow, orange and blue seats at Dodger Stadium are nearly filled as the sun sets on a warm Southern California day. Dodger fans eat Dodger dogs and cheer on their team. Up behind home plate, in a small broadcast booth with an open view of the field, Jaime Jarrin makes the call for Spanish-language radio.
Jarrin is well known among the Spanish speaking community -- a community that makes up about half of the Dodger fans at the stadium. His broadcasts air on a half-dozen radio stations, reaching all the way to Fresno, Santa Maria and even Montgomery, Alabama. Jarrin came to the U.S. from Argentina in 1955, when he was 19 years old. He landed a job as a news reporter at L.A.'s only Spanish-language radio station.
"One day -- it was just a common day -- I was around the station, working, when the G.M. came. He called all the employees to his office to give us the good news that he had signed a contract with the Dodgers to broadcast the Dodger games in Spanish," Jarrin recalls.
"And looking at me -- I was only 21 years old -- he, looking at me, said, 'I want you to be one of the two announcers.' And I was shocked because I didn't expect that," he says.
Jarrin grew up playing sports and covered championship boxing, but he'd never even seen a baseball game until he'd gotten to the U.S. So Jarrin spent a year studying the sport in books and going to minor league games around L.A. He started broadcasting Dodger games in Spanish in 1959, but it wasn't exactly live.
"We used to listen to Vin Scully and Jerry Doggett, and we had a big tape with background noise going on full-time. Then I had cartridges for a single, for a double, for a triple, for a home run, so I pushed the cartridge. We used to go almost simultaneously. Foul ball, foul ball, strike, strike, ball, ball. When they'd do a very difficult play, then I had to wait," Jarrin says.
Efren Meza is a lifelong Dodger fan. This season, he was hired to produce the Spanish-language Dodger radio broadcasts with Jaime Jarrin, the man whose voice he grew up with on his dad's radio.
"Some of the terms that are used in baseball initially weren't translated. They were just kind of said in a Spanish accent. So home run would be 'honron.' So it took Jaime, one of the first broadcasters to actually bring up some of the terminology that we hear today," Meza says.
"He called a home run a 'quadrangular.' You look at the bases, diamond, four angles, so that's what he calls it," Meza says.
Dodger fans Raul Torres and Alicia Perez of East L.A., laugh as they imitate Jarrin's home run call.
"Se va, se va, se va!"
"Se va, se va y despidala con un beso!"
"Somebody hits a home run, he says 'se va, se va,' like, 'it's gone, gone,' and then 'say good bye with a kiss,'" Perez explains.
The catch phrase was printed on Dodger blue T-shirts handed out a couple of months ago on Jaime Jarrin night, to honor the broadcaster at Dodger Stadium.
Down in the stands below Jarrin's perch in the press box, Spanish-speaking fans know him as an icon. Jose Barajas of East L.A. has been a Dodger fan since 1967.
"He's knowledgeable about baseball and also about the community. He knows about the community and what's going on," Barajas says. "You know, he's up to date."
Jarrin's son, Jorge Jarrin does Dodger play-by-play for Spanish-language TV. He says his dad's impact goes beyond baseball.
"He really embodies the American dream. An immigrant coming to this country, seeking to do better and getting this opportunity, making the most of it, opening the doors and proving, so that others could follow and step through like myself," Jorge says.
Jaime Jarrin is 76 years old now. But he says he feels good and doesn't plan to retire.
"I think it depends on the Dodgers now. I think I will, if they want, I will stay here as long as my body tells me to stop," he says.
After more than 8,200 regular-season games, plus a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Jarrin hopes that won't be anytime soon.
