Jaime Jarrín

Jaime Jarrín

• School Central University of Ecuador

• Born December 10, 1935 in Cayambe, Ecuador

Biographical Information

Jaime Jarrín was the Los Angeles Dodgers lead Spanish broadcaster starting in 1959. He won the Ford Frick Award in 1998. In recent years, Jarrín did play-by-play and his color partner was Fernando Valenzuela. His grandson Stefan Jarrin turned pro with the Dodgers in 2011. He considers Vin Scully as "my guide, my teacher, my professor, my helper".

At first, he worked in makeshift conditions, but gradually, he was given facilities equivalent to those of the English-language broadcast team at Dodger Stadium as it was recognized how much his radio broadcasts contributed to the growth in the team's popularity among southern California's Latino population - and beyond. He came into national attention during "Fernandomania" in 1981, as he was the go-to person to explain the phenomenon to outsiders, and often served as Fernando's interpreter, and that in turn brought attention to the excellent work he had by then been doing for over two decades behind the microphone. In 1981, he accompanied Fernando to the White House for a State dinner given by President Ronald Reagan in honor of his Mexican counterpart, Jose Lopez Portillo.

He was born in a middle class family in the farming community of Cayambe in Ecuador and moved to the capital, Quito as a teenager so he could go to high school, and later college. He moved to Los Angeles, CA in 1955 with his wife and then two-year-old son to pursue a career in broadcasting. He had never seen a baseball game at that point, but the coverage of the 1955 World Series, which the Dodgers won while still based in Brooklyn, caught his attention, especially the great numbers of people congregating around public television sets to catch the action. He was already working for Spanish-language KWKW-AM at the time, and when the Dodgers moved in in 1958, owner Peter O'Malley recognized the importance of reaching out to the Hispanic community and hired the station to broadcast the team's games in Spanish. Jarrín was chosen as the announcer, and never budged. For a few years from 2015 to 2020, his son Jorge Jarrín worked alongside him - but he retired before his father did. At first, he simply translated Scully's commentary into Spanish, but after a few years got to call the game himself, having learned the job from the best ever.

His home run call in Spanish was "Se va, se va, se va" (it's going, it's going, it's going) and became his signature phrase.

He was also the announcer for a number of championship boxing fights, including the "Thrilla in Manilla" featuring Muhammad Ali and George Foreman and other major events such as Pope John Paul II's first visit to the U.S. in 1980.

He announced before the 2022 season that it would be his final one as a broadcaster. He was paid a number of tributes during that final season, much as had been the case for Scully a few years before.

Further Reading

• Jorge Castillo (Los Angeles Times): "Jaime Jarrín has seen every big Dodgers moment in L.A.: Here are his fondest memories", Yahoo! News, July 15, 2022. [1]
• Dylan Hernández (Los Angeles Times): "Jaime Jarrín's dignity driven by his sense of duty as a Latino immigrant", Yahoo! News, September 30, 2022. [2]
• Josh Peter (USA Today): "'What a journey this man had:' How Jaime Jarrín became a LA Dodgers broadcasting legend", Yahoo! News, October 11, 2022. [3]