From Steve Dilbeck, an author for the LA Times:
Here’s [a story Scully] shared Thursday, on the final home game of the year, instigated by Tom Lasorda returning to the Dodgers dugout on his 84th birthday and involving former Dodger Don Zimmer, when he was managing of the Cubs:
"One year we’re in Chicago to play the Cubs, and for some reason, we’re not broadcasting the game. And Tommy asks me if I’ve ever sat in the dugout for a game. I tell him 'no' and he says, 'You have to try it.'
"I said as long as it’s cleared by the umpires beforehand. I don’t want them throwing me out. So I put on a uniform –- spring training tryout No. 76, but not for Union –- and wait until almost before the game starts and walk through the Wrigley hallway, sit on the dugout and pull my cap down all the way to my eyes. I don’t want anyone to even notice me.
"After the Dodgers are retired in the top of the first, (first base coach) John Vukovich yells over at me, 'Hey, Scully!' And he throws me a baseball. I catch the ball and written on it is, 'If a fight breaks out, I want you.' And it was signed Don Zimmer.
"All the Cubs are in their dugout, laying down laughing."
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Well, obviously Vin Scully would not have said that, because it would not be correct to say "laying". Instead he must have said "lying".
There are two things that can be confusing about "lay" and "lie". The first is that they sound similar but are distinguished by the first being transitive and the second intransitive. Roughly speaking, that is the difference between an action you do to another and an action you do that does not affect another. It is the same as the difference between "set" and "sit".
The second difficulty is that the past tense of "lie" is "lay": "I lie down now", but "I lay down yesterday."
Now, the Cubs might have been lying down laughing. They might have been falling down laughing. They might even have been laughing while laying down their gloves. But they could not have just been "laying down laughing". Vinny would not have said that.
And that reminds me that another pair of verbs with the same distinction is fell/fall. Can you think of others? (No internet searches please.) Leave them in the comments.

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