Photo from Google Images
Photo taken by Dominic DiSaia
There are no words to describe the impact that Vin Scully has had on the game of baseball. How do you describe 67 years of loyalty to one team? What do you even say to the man who has been the only voice for most Dodger fans today?
Vin Scully called his final Dodger game on Sunday. It was the last time we will ever hear “It’s time for Dodger baseball! Hi everybody and a very pleasant good (afternoon/evening) to you, where you may be”. It was his signature opening as he welcomed you and called you his friend.
Vin started with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1950 and moved to LA with the Dodgers in 1958. Vin became the youngest broadcaster to call a World Series game at 25 years old. In his baseball broadcast career alone, Vin called 25 World Series games, 20 no-hitters, three perfect games and over 9,000 MLB games.
Vin had a minimalist style in his broadcasting. He understood the beauty and timing of a pause that was an art form. As a listener, Vin painted the picture and gave you the moments to visualize and enjoy the game. He gave you the roar of the crowd and illusion that you were right there with him watching Dodger baseball. His voice was comforting, warm and full of pure love for the game.
Throughout his career Vin was the most humble man in sports. He repeatedly said that he needed the fans more than the fans needed him. Vin thrived off the roar of the crowd. It gave him goose-bumps as a child and throughout his entire 67 years as broadcaster.
Scully fell in love with baseball when he was eight years old. While walking home from school he passed a Chinese Laundry in the Washington Heights section of New York. He watched the Yankees beat the Giants 18-4 in game two of the World Series. There was just something about that game they made baseball his first love. In true Vin Scully fashion, it was fitting that 80 years to the date of falling in love with baseball would be the date of his retirement game. Vin was able to say goodbye on his terms and end an epic career on the date that forever changed the game of baseball.
I grew up in a Dodger household. Listening to baseball games was more common than watching them. Vic Scully was bigger than Dodger baseball; he is Dodger baseball. Vin drew more fans to the Dodgers than Gibson, Koufax, Snider, Kershaw, Lasorda, and Robinson. Listening to Vin was like story time. With the Dodgers on the west coast most games were played during east coast bedtime. Vin didn’t just give you the play-by-play, he told you stories that no other broadcaster knew or witnessed. He became your favorite professor as he explained the history of the Star Spangled Banner, where Friday the 13th comes from, or how a baseball player’s belt buckle is similar to a shovel. He was the master of telling stories.
Vin will never know the depth or width on the impact of his ability to just do what he loved to do. Vin will never understand that the fans needed him more.
Vin decided that it was simply time to step away from the booth. He simply cherishes the gift of time and is unsure of how much time he has left to live life. (He will be 89 in November.) One of Vin’s notable quotes “it’s a mere moment in a man’s life between the All-Star Game and an old timer’s game”. In the mere moments, Vin has always been the voice that could bridge the past to the present. The future of the Dodgers will never be the same without Vin.
The honest truth is that there will never be another Vin Scully in sports. So what do you say to the man and the voice who has been the reason so many of us have fallen in love with baseball? Thank you. Thank you, Vin for the 67 years of baseball history.