THE NAME-DROPPER Honoring a mayor, famed broadcaster

Oscar E. Olsen Park and Vin Scully Field, Bogota.

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One was a civic-minded TV and appliance repairman. The other was and still is a redhead blessed with a voice as sunny as a lazy summer day.

The names of Oscar E. Olsen and Vin Scully grace the complex where youngsters in mile-square Bogota have long flocked to play baseball.

Oscar E. Olsen Park, whose centerpiece is Vin Scully Field, is situated on a bend of the brownish Hackensack River. Bogota's largest green space was the brainchild of Olsen, who had a repair shop on West Fort Lee Road and served as a councilman for a dozen years before election as mayor.

Under the Republican's guidance, a rubbish dump next to the New York, Susquehanna & Western Railway tracks was converted in 1947 to a ball field and a wading pool. The place was called Riverview Park, and by 1957 two more ball fields, a playground, a basketball court and an ice-skating rink were added.

Olsen didn't live to see Riverview Park grow. The evening of April 24, 1956 his 113th day as mayor the 54-year-old attended a Lions Club meeting, then stopped by a friend's house. As soon as he doffed his coat, The Bergen Evening Record reported, he fell dead from a heart attack.

The sudden demise of a well-liked mayor was front-page news. The Evening Record took note of Olsen's sense of humor, membership in fraternal associations and generosity to those in financial need. "He was quick to tackle a job, and was considered on the ablest workers on the Council," the newspaper reported.

The night Mayor Olsen died was an unscheduled day off for his most vocally recognizable constituent, 28-year-old Vincent Edward Scully, a Bronx native and graduate of Fordham University.

That's because the Brooklyn Dodgers' game at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia was postponed due to cold weather.

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THE NAME-DROPPER Honoring a mayor, famed broadcaster