Dodgers to Pay to Repair Vin Scully's Walk of Fame Star

A Dodger fan who started an effort to raise funds to fix announcer Vin Scully's cracked star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame achieved his goal in an unexpected way when he posted on his website Wednesday that the baseball team had announced that it would pay for the repairs. 

Glenn Mingay, a Torrance native who now lives in Chicago, started the website Save Vin Scully's Star after fans noticed that the marker was cracked. Fans were informed that it wouldn't be repaired soon because other stars were in worse condition. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce told Mingay that if he raised $2,500 the star would be repaired immediately. 

Last week, when first spoke to Mingay, the campaign had raised a few hundred dollars. On Wednesday, Mingay posted a surprise announcement on the website: The Dodgers had offered to pay the bill to repair the star after Scully noticed his fans' efforts. 

"I want to thank everyone for their donations and kind words about Mr. Scully. If we were unsure as to what kind of person Mr. Scully is, after this we are clear. Mr. Scully is a gentleman, and that is why we Dodger fans think so much of him," wrote Mingay. 

When the chamber called Mingay this week to tell him that the Dodgers wanted to pay to fix the cracked star, he shut down the website immediately. He didn't want people to think that they were donating money to repair Scully's star; all money that the website raised will now go toward the foundation for Bryan Stow, the San Francisco Giants fan who was badly beaten at Dodger Stadium on opening day.

Mingay said he was surprised by the Dodgers' actions; he didn't think that the organization had funds to to spare.

"They have so many things happening with Major League Baseball right now,” he said Wednesday in a phone interview. "I figured everything they had, they needed."

Mingay said he was dissappointed when he first heard the news. He wanted the fans to raise the money. 

"I wanted to do something here," he said. 

But after he thought about it, and remembered the goal of the fundraiser was to get the star repaired, he was thankful for the organization's donation. 

Now, Mingay has a new goal: to meet Scully who still hasn't reached out to him personally. 

"I did reach out to the Dodgers [and said] I would like to say hi to him. I've never actually met the guy," he said. 

Mingay plans to arrive in Los Angeles in a month for his father's birthday, and he hopes that construction will have started on the star by then. 

Ana Martinez, vice president of media relations for the chamber, told Mingay that she would try to coordinate the repairs with his visit. The construction will take only a couple of hours. 

"I am thankful people wanted to do something about it," said Mingay. "We got what we wanted, but I guess not the way we wanted it to happen."