Excellent news today: Vin Scully said on the air that he intends to be back for his 63rd season of announcing Dodgers baseball.

As he always has, in the times I’ve spoken with him in the past decade, Vinny, who will be 84 (!) in November, made sure we all understand he assumes nothing. As he likes to say: “If you want to make God smile, tell Him your plans.”

But beyond my hope for his continued health and vigor, this is what I hope for the 2012 season, for Vinny’s sake:

That he is able to announce games for a Dodgers team freed from the dreadful and grasping and selfish “stewardship” of Frank and/or Jamie McCourt.

That’s it.

I’d like for the team to be competitive, which has not been in Vin’s 62nd season. But at this point in history, I don’t think that happens until the malignant McCourt presence is excised from the franchise.

If someone else is in charge of the team … if anyone someone else (including Major League Baseball) is running the team … the club might even have a chance to win back the thousands (millions?) of fans who have disengaged themselves from Dodger Blue as long as the current ownership is in place.

Do we deserve a Dodgers franchise minus the McCourts? Well, yes.

But what I really want is a Dodgers franchise minus the McCourts … for the sake of Vin Scully, who has served the franchise like no other employee (including Tommy Lasorda) for so long and so well.

He deserves to talk about a team, to spin his stories, to entrance us with his soothing voice … while looking at a Dodgers franchise that all of Los Angeles can embrace.

Here is what he said, on Prime Ticket tonight: “I don’t want to make a big deal out of it; you and I have been friends for a long time. But after a lot of soul-searching and a few prayers, we’ve decided that we will come back with the Dodgers for next year. God’s been awfully good to me, allowing me to do the things I love to do. I asked Him one more year, at least, and He said ‘OK’.”

Isn’t it strange, that Vinny may be the most beloved person in the City of Angels … while the leadership of the company he works for may be the most reviled?

If it were someone other than Vin Scully, we would question his attachment to such an unsavory crew. But Vinny is far bigger than this ownership regime, and I believe that he understands that for Dodgers fans hurting and in despair that he represents both a link to the past and a hope for the future. That he represents the way things were (“Look who’s coming up!”) and the way they could be again some day.

We could make a case that Vinny is the only significant link Dodgers fans have to the glory days, when the team mattered, and it was about stability and humility and dignity.  Qualities that Scully himself has in spades.

I want what might well be his last season to be one that we all can feel good about. That starts with the McCourts going “poof” and taking their spendthrift ways to some other corner of the world. Anywhere that’s not Dodger Stadium. Anywhere that’s not Vinny’s House.