Vin Scully
From SoSH
Vincent Edward Scully (b. November 29, 1927) is the legendary leader of the Los Angeles Dodgers broadcast team. Scully, unlike his colleagues, possesses an ability to tell stories, call accurate play-by-play, and occasionally update a radio listener on the score, all without straining himself. For this, Dodgers fans everywhere still love him, despite his love of telling the life stories of opposing players. He has been with the Dodgers since 1950, making him the longest tenured broadcaster in all of baseball.
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Broadcasting Biography
Scully's career began when he was a student broadcaster at Fordham University. Professionally, he started out with WTOP, the CBS affiliate in Washington. Red Barber took him on for the network's college football coverage. The story of Scully's first game is well-known. He had to call the game at Fenway Park in frigid temperatures, but his youth and naivete suggested that he'd have an enclosed booth to work in, so he didn't bring any warm clothing. He did the broadcast anyway and never complained on the air, which impressed CBS brass. Barber became Scully's mentor after that, and Scully eventually joined him and Connie Desmond on the Dodgers' broadcast team. Scully filled in for Barber for the 1953 World Series, making him, at 25, the youngest person ever to broadcast a World Series game. The record still stands to this day.
Though Scully has spent nearly sixty years with the Dodgers, he has also called football games for CBS and baseball games for NBC. For NBC, he called three World Series, four National League Championship Series, and four All-Star Games.
Today, Scully's workload includes only Dodger home games and road games within the NL West, with few exceptions, such as the first two games of the 2006 National League Division Series, which were played in New York. Scully is simulcast on television and radio for the first three innings, and then he calls the rest of the game solely for television, with Charley Steiner and Rick Monday taking over for radio. Also, Scully normally doesn't call Dodgers games if ESPN or Fox is broadcasting them nationally.
Scully is signed through 2008 and has not said whether he plans to work after that; he turns 80 in the 2007-2008 offseason. If he does hang it up, Dodgers fans everywhere will suffer a massive coronary over the prospect of spending three hours a day with Steiner, Monday, Jerry Reuss, and Steve Lyons in some combination.
Scully received the 1982 Ford C. Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He was also the Master of Ceremonies for the All-Century Team in 1999 and has won a record 28 California Sportscaster of the Year Awards. He is enshrined in the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame and the Radio Hall of Fame.
Famous Calls
1955 World Series
Scully, just 28 at the time, had simple news to give to the long-suffering fans of Brooklyn at the conclusion of the World Series.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the Brooklyn Dodgers are champions of the world."
Sandy Koufax's Perfect Game
Scully's entire call of the ninth inning is available online and worth the listen.
"Two and two to Harvey Kuenn, one strike away. Sandy into his windup, here's the pitch: swung on and missed, a perfect game! On the scoreboard in right field it is 9:46 p.m. in the City of the Angels, Los Angeles, California, and a crowd of twenty-nine thousand one-hundred thirty nine just sitting in to see the only pitcher in baseball history to hurl four no-hit, no-run games. He has done it four straight years, and now he caps it: on his fourth no-hitter he made it a perfect game. And Sandy Koufax, whose name will always remind you of strikeouts, did it with a flourish: he struck out the last six consecutive batters—so when he wrote his name in capital letters in the record books, that K stands out even more than the O-U-F-A-X."
1986 World Series
Scully was behind the mic in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. His call of the infamous end to the game remains etched in the minds of scarred Boston Red Sox fans everywhere.
"Little roller up along first...behind the bag! It gets through Buckner! Here comes Knight and the Mets win it!"
1988 World Series
Whether Jack Buck or Scully had the better call of Kirk Gibson's Game 1 homer off Dennis Eckersley remains up for debate. They're both pretty good. As Vin said,
"In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened!"
September 18, 2006
The Dodgers defeated the Padres 11-10 on this date thanks to back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs in the bottom of the ninth inning, with the win sealed by Nomar Garciaparra's tenth-inning two-run home run.
"And a high fly ball to left field, it is a-way out and gone! The Dodgers win it, 11-10! [chuckles] Unbelievable! [Over a full minute later...] I forgot to tell you: the Dodgers are in first place."
Somewhat Less Famous Vin-isms
- Tells the Jack Wilson Story every time the Pirates play in Los Angeles, despite the fact that every Dodgers fan watching the game can recite the story from memory.
- Has a mancrush on Omar Vizquel.
- Often flubs players' names in ways that the FCC probably doesn't approve of (e.g., "Jeff Kunt").
- Comes down with a case of the giggles every time Chin-Lung Hu reaches first base, just because he gets to say "Hu's on first."
- Thinks John Smoltz looks like Donald Sutherland.
- Still as quick as always, Vin quipped during a Dodgers/Braves game in 2007, "I just hope he (Saltalamacchia) doesn't get caught in a rundown. With him on base, and Garciaparra in the field, that would be way too many syllables for me to try to get out in a hurry!"
