There will never be anyone else like the iconic Vin Scully
On any Saturday afternoon in the fall of 1949 it would be easy to find a football game on the radio. Tune in anywhere on the dial and you’d find one game or another. Or, if you were within range of WCBS New York or WTOP in Washington you could follow several games at once. Those two stations pooled their resources and placed playby-play men at several locations, then bounced from one game to another.
As the stations were lining up their coverage for one weekend they realized they needed to find one more broadcaster. Someone pulled out a letter that had come from a Fordham University senior who asked to be considered if any openings occurred. No one could come up with a better idea, so the executives decided to take a chance with the kid, reasoning that they could place him at whatever game would receive the smallest amount of air time.
Thus, Vin Scully was dispatched to Braves Field in Boston, where Boston University would be hosting Maryland. As it happened the game turned into a 1413 nail-biter. Instead of being an afterthought as the executives had imagined, it became the centerpiece of that day’s program. Scully found himself in the spotlight and was equal to the task.
Nevertheless, the story might have ended there if it weren’t for a letter that arrived at the WCBS office the following Wednesday. It contained an apology from Boston University for having to place the WCBSWTOP broadcaster on the roof. The sports director of the station was aghast. Young Scully had done his work while standing on the rooftop of a ballpark, desperately holding onto his notes while exposed to the chilling, biting November wind. He hadn’t mentioned that fact to anyone, even off the air.
The sports director’s name was Red Barber, who also happened to be the senior play-byplay man for the Brooklyn Dodgers. With the coming of television Barber thought the Dodgers needed to add a third broadcaster to their crew and he began to take a serious look at Scully. When he learned that Scully was the center fielder on the Fordham baseball team, he knew he had his man. Thus Scully graduated from college in 1950 and immediately joined Barber and Connie Desmond in the Dodgers broadcasting booth.
If you happened to read that tale in a novel, you would probably dismiss it all as utterly impossible. Yet, this is how it unfolded in real life. And there was more to come.
Three years later, after the Dodgers won the National League pennant, Barber declined to work the World Series because of a financial disagreement. Desmond also declined. Since the contract demanded that the World Series broadcasting team include one announcer from each of the participating teams, the network turned to Scully, who was glad to do it no matter what they paid him. Thus, at the age of 25, he became the youngest ever to broadcast a World Series game.
After the 1953 season Barber left the Dodgers and joined Mel Allen in the Yankees broadcasting booth. Two years later Desmond was fired and Scully became the team’s senior broadcaster. In 1958 the Dodgers left Brooklyn and re-established themselves in Los Angeles. They brought Scully with them.
In Los Angeles he had a vast new audience. The city previously had two Pacific Coast League teams but arrival of a major league team produced millions of new fans. Scully was an instant success. Blessed with an agreeable voice (he sang in a barbershop quartet while at Fordham), he had the knack of being able to explain the game to the novice without talking down to the hardcore fan. He described the action in an unbiased manner — never rooting on the air. He was respectful of everyone and never second-guessed managers or umpires.
Road games from the east frequently started at 5 p.m. California time, just when Los Angeles freeways were becoming gridlocked with rush hour traffic. Millions of people crawled home from work with Vin Scully and the Dodgers keeping them company.
When the team was at home it became common practice for fans to bring transistor radios with them to the ballpark. Fans knew they could understand the game if they could listen to Scully. He was probably more popular than any of the players.
Over the years Scully branched out to network broadcasting. He did pro football games and golf tournaments for CBS. Later he did network baseball broadcasts for NBC. But he never stopped being the voice of the Dodgers. He turned 70 and he kept on broadcasting. He turned 80 and he kept on broadcasting.
Finally, at the age of 88, he had decided the time has come to wrap up his career. Sunday afternoon, when the Dodgers play the Giants in San Francisco, Vin Scully will call his final game, concluding an amazing 67-year career.
I can’t say I know him well, but I’ve been in his presence in press rooms many times. I can tell you this much — he’s always the same affable man off the air that he is when he’s behind a microphone. He treats everyone around him with dignity and kindness. I’ve never heard a cross word (or a swear word for that matter) come out of his mouth.
There will never be another like him.