On a spring day in 1950, Vin Scully sat down in the broadcast booth at Ebbets Field and called his first professional baseball game for the then-Brooklyn Dodgers. A young 23-year-old graduate of Fordham University, Scully would continue to call games for Brooklyn until the team’s relocation in 1957.
After that, Scully — along with the Dodgers — made the long move to Chavez Ravine and began calling games in Los Angeles. After 60 years after the move, Scully has decided to retire at the age of 88.
Since his arrival in Major League Baseball in 1950, Scully has been the gold standard for sports broadcasting, and sports journalism as a whole. In his 67 years of service, the man has covered and called seemingly every historic event from Sandy Koufax’s no-hitter in 1965, to Hank Aaron’s record-breaking home run in 1974, to even calling Bill Buckner’s gaffe in the 1986 World Series.
While Scully has been there for some of baseball’s most iconic moments, he is a pillar in baseball journalism because of the way he carries himself and the way he calls games.
What you often see and hear when you tune into a game are broadcasters who more often than not show a game’s excitement by turning up the volume. Too often you hear a broadcaster explode when Bryce Harper or Miguel Cabrera rips a game-winning homerun. But, when you hear Vin, his voice, his demeanor and his volume are nothing short of perfection.
In Game One of the 1988 World Series, the Dodgers trailed 4-3 entering the ninth inning. With Kirk Gibson seemingly out of the game with injuries to both legs, Scully detailed the slugger’s absence as the camera panned down the Dodger dugout. Watching from the clubhouse, Gibson implored Manager Tommy Lasorda to allow him to pinch-hit in the ninth – Lasorda agreed. With the count full after fouling off numerous pitches off of Oakland A’s shutdown closer Dennis Eckersley, Gibson uncorked a miraculous homer that won the opening contest for the Dodgers.
As the ball rose into the Los Angeles night sky, Scully didn’t yell, he didn’t get lost in the moment and he didn’t overshadow the moment either. He simply exclaimed, “She is gone!” excitedly as Gibson rounded the bases. Then Scully did what he does best, and what most broadcasters refuse to do — he got out of the way.
Scully sat back and allowed the viewer to take in the roar of the crowd and the pure elation plastered across the faces of all the Dodgers as Gibson was greeted at home. Then, Scully summed up the entire ordeal with one succinct phrase, “In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.”
Scully has a knack for encapsulating momentous events in few words. When Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1974, Scully was again on the call. And while the entirety of the sports world understood what had just unfolded, the great broadcaster brought an even more important point to light.
“What a marvelous moment for baseball,” Scully said. “What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world … A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol.”
By invoking the greater significance of the moment and then going silent, Scully gave his audience a chance to take in the entire scene and digest its importance in not only baseball, but in civil rights.
However, the crown jewel of all of Scully’s calls came back in his first 15 years of broadcasting for the Dodgers. The day was Sept. 9, 1965 and Sandy Koufax was the pitcher. In the contest, Koufax tossed a perfect game and struck out 14. The description and attention to detail that Scully employed is second to none.
Talking about the way Koufax ran his hands through his jet-black hair or how he felt “the mound at Dodger Stadium right now is the loneliest place in the world” are a few of the uncountable instances of Scully transporting his listener to a seat in Chavez Ravine.
As Scully’s time comes to an end in Major League Baseball, we must look back and reflect what made him so great: his detail, his poise and his commitment to placing his audience in the seat next to him through the spoken word. So long Vin, and a very happy day to you.
