THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Through long summer nights over the past 67 years, there has been one constant for baseball fans in general and Dodgers fans in particular: the mesmerizing and melodious tones of announcer Vin Scully weaving the tale of yet another baseball game. But on October 2nd, 2016, in San Francisco, the soon to be 89-year-old Scully called his last game before heading into a well-earned retirement.
On longevity alone, his career behind the microphone would be utterly amazing. But with wit and wisdom, an endless string of tales and down-home humor, as well as an unparalleled knack for making a baseball game feel like one long timeless story, Scully became the sound of baseball – a beloved uncle sitting in the living room with you spinning a good old yarn.
Vincent Edward Scully first sat behind a microphone to call a Major League Baseball game in 1950, joining Connie Desmond and the legendary Red Barber in the booth for Brooklyn Dodgers radio and television broadcasts. After Barber left the Dodgers in 1953, the 25-year-old Scully became the youngest person ever to broadcast a World Series game – a distinction that still belongs to him.
In 1958, Scully moved west with the Dodgers franchise as they left Brooklyn for Los Angeles. He became so popular in Southern California that radio and television engineers had trouble compensating for the echo of Scully's play-by-play from all the transistor radios which fans brought to the stadium to listen to the game.
Scully went on to national prominence through his work on CBS and NBC, calling PGA Golf, tennis and NFL games, in addition to Major League Baseball's Saturday Game of the Week and playoff action. In 1982 he was behind the mic for Joe Montana's last-second touchdown heave to Dwight Clark in the NFC Championship Game.
In fact, the list of legendary moments in sports history which were painted by Scully's voice are legendary in themselves. He called 19 no-hitters, from Sandy Koufax to Clayton Kershaw, the infamous Bill Buckner boot in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series and Wrigley Field's first official night game in 1988.
But it was the 1988 World Series that brought about perhaps his most memorable moment, when Kirk Gibson hit the game-winning pinch-hit home run against Dennis Eckersley inspired the immortal words "In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened."
Scully later recounted that his proudest moment of that game actually occurred when he pronounced Gibson out for the game with his bad knees. Gibson heard the pronouncement on TV in the locker room as he was icing his legs and took it as a personal challenge.
"My greatest contribution in all my years with the Dodgers was getting Gibby off the training table at the end of the game," Scully said. "Whatever happened, it struck a note, and Gibby got up and hollered, 'Tell Tommy [Lasorda] I'll be there.' Next thing you know, he comes down and… magic."
Through the years, Scully wove his own magic day in and day out with grace and humility. He called games alone without a color commentator and drew his viewers in, melding the magic of the current moment with the history of the game through his endless tales of moments past. He wove a baseball game into a tapestry to be savored and enjoyed.
The game of baseball will be poorer without Vin Scully's voice, but after all he has given the game over the past 67 years, no one can begrudge him, as his famous sign off line goes, "a pleasant good afternoon".
