Vin Scully has passed away

Al Zarilla

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Dec 8, 2005
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I'm cross-posting here, because I'm just gutted about this. Like a million other kids growing up in southern California in the mid-1960's, I took my transistor to bed and listed to Vin Scully. I can't imagine the number of hours I spent listening to him tell me about the Dodgers. I'm here, across the country, still a baseball fanatic, because of Vin Scully.

Lots of great clips above (and @Reverend posted Vin reading a shopping list on the P&G deaths page.) Here's Jon Miller doing his Vin impersonation. I've always loved this.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqe8uq9BWVc&t=142s
So now, the best baseball storyteller baton is passed to Jon Miller, IMO.

Who held the title of best at anything, you name it, longer than Vin Scully?
 
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canderson

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Jul 16, 2005
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Just seeing this news. Gut-punch, indeed. I didn't grow up with him like so many here (and across the country), but every time I got the chance to hear him it was a treat. Once MLB Radio or whatever it was called became a thing, I loved having it on after my newspaper shift in Texas as I wound down the night with Vin calling whatever game. I didn't give a care in the world about the NL but that was always a treat.
 

Bergs

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Jul 22, 2005
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If there were an inner circle of the hall of fame, for people who not merely excelled within baseball but actively grew the game's reaches, appeal and community - made it more of the celebration that it intends to be, rather than the commercial act that it's so easy to focus on - Vin Scully would surely be in it. Could there be even 20 people throughout the long history of pro baseball who have minted or sustained as many new fans of the game as Scully? Perhaps, but 50? It's not a long list. And even the Ruths and Mantles can only walk their part on the stage for 20 years or so. Scully was in it for 70, and not just punching a clock for the latter decades but reveling in it and bringing the same energy every day.

There were some great memories shared of Fred Rogers (Mr Rogers' Neighborhood) a few years ago, I forget what made them make the rounds. But in one of them, a woman's too-cool-for-school kids, boys of 8 or 10 or so, found themselves captivated by Mr Rogers after she introduced them to the show, despite being far too old for it. They'd come home from their overscheduled lives, get done with their homework, and then turn on a few episodes of a show from a bygone decade. And when she eventually asked why, they said "mom, isn't it obvious? He just likes kids." Around them, Rogers radiated that gentle joy, that genuine friendship and caring and curiosity, that is unmistakable and un-fake-able. Well, Scully had that for baseball, that's the best analogy I could muster. At no point while he was on the air did he stop radiating a genuine love of the game, never over-the-top or forced, but measured at the pace that the game itself provides. It was impossible to listen to a game called by him and not be drawn into some aspect of it, or nod along with his stories that were perfectly calibrated, as if having a conversation with the friend seated next to you at the ballpark. It was soothing, it was entertaining, it welcomed you into the warm embrace of a game that was never too intense or serious for a little anecdote or a joke. But most of all, it was loving. Vin Scully kept going at it for 70 years because of how genuinely he loved baseball, so it was never a job. Why stop? Why do anything else? There's a game on!

May we all find something we love as much as Scully loved baseball.
Fantastic post. Nailed it.
 

Bergs

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Jul 22, 2005
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Am I allowed to say I didn’t really care much for Scully? I get that he had a memorable voice. He and Garagiola were never my favorite pairing in the 80s – I much preferred NBC’s AL pairing (which Wikipedia tells me was Costas and Kubek but I don’t remember it being them and thought it may have been Dick Enberg). I’m sure Scully calling Game 6 didn’t help. But the hagiography with Scully has always low key annoyed me.
No one idolizes the guy for his mid-80's national stuff. Did you never spend a beautiful summer evening listening to him do a Dodgers game? He was transcendent. Instaface's post captures it perfectly.
 

bosockboy

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Jul 15, 2005
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Some interesting irony. Buckner was in LF for the Dodgers when Aaron’s 715 sailed over his head. 12 years later Scully’s other indelible (and painful) call was Buckner.
 

Kliq

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Mar 31, 2013
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Vin Scully was a broadcaster during Connie Mack's final season as a manager. Connie Mack was born during the Civil War.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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Sep 9, 2008
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5/25/15: Vin Scully tells another fantastic tale of how Jonny Gomes survived a wolf attack when he was 12 years old
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QqobHHwLbPg
What's so remarkable about the story is that you can sort of hear Scully moderating his tempo and the story in order to match the at bat. The first base ump did him a favor by not ringing Gomes up on 2-2 but then it works out so that the story ends just as Gomes gets his hit.

So much debate in sports about who is the GOAT and different eras and stuff like that. In his field, everyone is fighting for second place behind Vin.
 

Kliq

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If there were an inner circle of the hall of fame, for people who not merely excelled within baseball but actively grew the game's reaches, appeal and community - made it more of the celebration that it intends to be, rather than the commercial act that it's so easy to focus on - Vin Scully would surely be in it. Could there be even 20 people throughout the long history of pro baseball who have minted or sustained as many new fans of the game as Scully? Perhaps, but 50? It's not a long list. And even the Ruths and Mantles can only walk their part on the stage for 20 years or so. Scully was in it for 70, and not just punching a clock for the latter decades but reveling in it and bringing the same energy every day.

There were some great memories shared of Fred Rogers (Mr Rogers' Neighborhood) a few years ago, I forget what made them make the rounds. But in one of them, a woman's too-cool-for-school kids, boys of 8 or 10 or so, found themselves captivated by Mr Rogers after she introduced them to the show, despite being far too old for it. They'd come home from their overscheduled lives, get done with their homework, and then turn on a few episodes of a show from a bygone decade. And when she eventually asked why, they said "mom, isn't it obvious? He just likes kids." Around them, Rogers radiated that gentle joy, that genuine friendship and caring and curiosity, that is unmistakable and un-fake-able. Well, Scully had that for baseball, that's the best analogy I could muster. At no point while he was on the air did he stop radiating a genuine love of the game, never over-the-top or forced, but measured at the pace that the game itself provides. It was impossible to listen to a game called by him and not be drawn into some aspect of it, or nod along with his stories that were perfectly calibrated, as if having a conversation with the friend seated next to you at the ballpark. It was soothing, it was entertaining, it welcomed you into the warm embrace of a game that was never too intense or serious for a little anecdote or a joke. But most of all, it was loving. Vin Scully kept going at it for 70 years because of how genuinely he loved baseball, so it was never a job. Why stop? Why do anything else? There's a game on!

May we all find something we love as much as Scully loved baseball.
It reminds me a lot of the reaction when John Madden died; that while he wasn't discussed as the most famous person ever associated with the sport (although he was right up there), he was really one of the five or so most important people ever at helping grow professional football and making people fall in love with the sport.
 

Leskanic's Thread

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Vin Scully was a broadcaster during Connie Mack's final season as a manager. Connie Mack was born during the Civil War.
The other version of this I saw last night: Vin called games featuring Connie Mack (born 1862) and Julio Urías (born 1996).
 

Kliq

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The other version of this I saw last night: Vin called games featuring Connie Mack (born 1862) and Julio Urías (born 1996).
The thing about the Mack stat is that Scully wouldn't have been calling any of his games, given that he was the broadcaster for an NL team and Mack was in the AL.
 

Leskanic's Thread

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The thing about the Mack stat is that Scully wouldn't have been calling any of his games, given that he was the broadcaster for an NL team and Mack was in the AL.
According to a random comment on a Facebook post I just found, he called a spring training game between Mack's A's and the Dodgers in 1950.

Is that true? I don't know. But I choose to believe it is.
 

Nator

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Vin was the best. There are so many things to choose from, but I personally appreciate how he served as the inspiration for the announcer on this Simpsons bit (obvious by my signature). I laugh to the point of tears every time it gets to, "...and heeeere come the pretzels." That sounds exactly the way Vin would have called it if that happened in real life.

 

SumnerH

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Vin Scully was a broadcaster during Connie Mack's final season as a manager. Connie Mack was born during the Civil War.
Scully was a broadcaster for so long that Betty White had only been acting on TV for 11 years when he started broadcasting.
 

Tony C

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Love those Jon Miller imitations -- never heard them before.

We moved from East Longmeadow to So. Cal when I was about 5. Some of my earliest memories are from when I would fall asleep listening to Vin Scully. Sometimes, I’d get woken up by the highlights played after the game was over. Usually when Vin got excited because the Dodgers pulled out a last minute victory. He was the voice of my childhood.
Same here, only at 6 rather than 5 (and not from E Longmeadow)...but I truly think growing up listening to Vin under my pillow was humanizing.
 

LoweTek

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Love those Jon Miller imitations -- never heard them before.
I can remember in the early 80's when Miller and Ken Coleman were the radio team for the Red Sox they used to stay on air during rain delays. Some of the funniest content ever as Jon Miller did a whole collection of imitations of everybody from Scully to Sherm Feller. Every one of them spot on and extremely funny. Coleman would throw him softballs and Miller would run with whatever it was. I seem to remember Miller was replaced by some guy named Joe Castiglione.