Email a copy of 'In Appreciation Of Vin Scully' to a friend
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By Jeff Todd | at
Email a copy of 'In Appreciation Of Vin Scully' to a friend
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chop
The first baseball voice I ever heard was in 2002 from a TBS Braves game being called by Skip Caray. I’ve been hooked since.
Good announcers like Vin Scully are RARE, especially calling games alone. I wish him the best in his future away from the game and appreciate the character and charismatic calling of the great game of baseball!
dodgers4life357
Agree
Jeff Todd
I also grew up with a heavy dose of TBS Braves (as well as the WGN Cubs I mentioned in the article). Many children of the 90’s did, via cable.
johnsilver
That old Braves TBS crew was not bad at all Jeff.. Carey, Van Wieren and of course? Ex pitcher Ernie Johnson. He was the really class act, but they all blended together so well when many of us were listening to broadcasts mainly on radio and they and WGN were about all we could constantly see,except for what a local station would broadcast sometimes of various teams.
Jeff Todd
I definitely remember watching the Braves about as much as the Cubs in my youth. Long summer days with nothing to do … where did those go?
johnsilver
Agreed. Luckily here, so many teams had ST in central florida during the 60’s and 70,s, plus many local stations radio stations would broadcast games.. Could listen to half a dozen, or more games at just about any time.
Used to keep a radio above my bed, would fall asleep many nights during my youth listening to games..
vinscully16
Well said, Jeff.
Jeff Todd
Thanks!
arcadia Ldogg
As a grade and high school kid in the 60’s and early 70’s, I would fall asleep with a transitor radio under my pillow.
Here in So Cal, we have now lost the best in basketball in Chick Hearn and now Vinny retiring. Bob Miller, also hall of famer is reducing his load due to last year’s heart attack.
Good luck Vinny and we’ll see you at Staples, Bob.
aknott1
One of the best articles I’ve ever read on here (and that’s saying a lot). Nicely done, Jeff!
Jeff Todd
Thanks so much.
CoryM
Fantastic tribute to the greatest of all time. What I would give to sit next to him during a game…
Jeff Todd
Y’know, every time someone has posed the question to me, “who would you want to meet, dead or alive?”, the only answer I’ve ever been able to come up with is Vin. Once he referenced something on the air that made me think he might be an MLBTR reader, and I nearly feinted at the thought, ha.
Martin 2
I “grew up” with Vin; his voice IS baseball, to me. What gets to me is that other broadcasters have never figured out his secret, that he actually calls the games. Most networks broadcast games with at least 3 in the booth, 1 in the stands and another on the field, and they’re all fighting to have their voice heard. I tune in to hear a game, and all I hear from the press box is people chatting it up, an interview with some clueless fan, or a commentary from a field reporter; who cares! Are baseball games too long because of the game, or what we have to listen to? We need more single person broadcasts, people who just want to talk about the game at hand, like Vin did; then, baseball will return to it’s roots as America’s game. May Vin’s legacy wear off on the industry!
Jeff Todd
“He actually calls the games.” Nailed it, from someone lucky enough to have absorbed a lot of Vin!
norcalblue
Thank you for this comment. I really never appreciated the importance of Vinnie being alone in the booth and being able to establish that direct connection with the listener until recently. He spoke at length about this in his press conference. Obviously, he had the ability to demand this format until the end of his career; but it appears the Dodgers will move exclusively to the three-announcer format. I enjoy Orel and Nomar very much; but no individual or group of individuals can ever replace Vinnie. Truly the last and best of an era.
BlueSkyLA
Vin worked for a number of years during the ’80s with Joe Garagiola broadcasting the Game of the Week and several postseasons for NBC. They were a good team. Working alone wasn’t nearly as important as never forgetting the listener is your audience, not the other person in the booth. This is what the current sportscasting teams seem to not understand.
Thronson5
Well said thanks for the article! I have loved seeing all the people pay respect to Vin. It’s been tough dealing with saying good bye to this man. He’s been a very big part of my life for the last 30 years. There will never be anyone like him. Don’t get me wrong, there are always great announcers and always will be but there will never be one like Vin. What he did was incredible. Not just doing this for 67 years but doing it at such a high level for 67 years and just the way he did what he did. He painted a picture like no other and told a story. He had some of the best stories. Really going to miss it. Thankful I was able to grow up listening to Vin and I really am happy for him, his wife and his family that they get to spend more time together now.
Jeff Todd
Check out the piece Grant Brisbee wrote at SB Nation. He talks about those unfortunate souls (such as myself, and most of us) who weren’t saturated by Vin, but only caught him when we could. You experienced something truly unique.
Frozen rope
We will miss you Vin, thanks for all the great moments!
pbuchman
The greatest broadcaster of all time.
I fell in love with baseball in 1988. Forever etched into my memory is his legendary call of one of the great moments in baseball history:
“High fly ball into right field, she is goooonnnneee!!!!…In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened!”
Flatline
Great read…thank you Jeff. I am not a Dodger fan so I have never heard anything about who is the “unlucky” son of a gun who has to follow in his gigantic legendary footsteps as the next Dodger announcer? Have they ever said whom?
Ully
Jeff, this is also one of the best articles I ever read on here. I grew up outside Chicago, my grandfather would have us watch a Cubs game, sing the 7th inning stretch and then after the game have us play wiffle ball. Then I moved to So Cal as a teen and fought the ability to appreciate Vin. It took some maturity to acknowledge that he was the best to listen to. I had to fight my Homer tendencies and acknowledge how great he was. His sign off to god career was tear jerking. He is just a fantastic personality and a delight to listen to most of the summer. I will miss him.
Jeff Todd
Man, Cubbies and wiffle ball with your granddad, doesn’t get any better than that!
I struggled to adapt after the Orioles parted ways with Jon Miller. When I was the most into baseball – mid-nineties O’s – he was their voice. He’s the only guy other than Vin who I can actually hear narrate things inside my mind from time to time!
Just looked it up on Wikipedia to recall what happened there … ugh.
Wikipedia: “At the end of that season, Orioles owner Peter Angelos, displeased with Miller’s often candid commentary on the Orioles play, declined to renew his contract, citing a desire for a broadcaster who would ‘bleed more orange and black.'”
norcalblue
Thank you Jeff. Such a personal and thoughtful reflection, I truly appreciate the time and care you put into this article.
I saw my first game in 1961. A double-header in the Coliseum. I was 7 years-old. We sat out in left-field behind the screen and I remember Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson, that Sandy Koufax pitched game 1, that the Reds swept. and I remember Vinnie’s voice. It seemed to be everywhere that evening.
For those of you who aren’t in LA or read the paper, I wanted to provide this link to Vinnie’s final press conference held a week ago last Saturday–following his Friday tribute on the field. If you haven’t heard it, I recommend it to you all. It is approximate 45 minutes of pleasure and treasure.
latimes.com/sports/la-sp-vin-scully-final-press-co…
On a personal note, in one of the final segments of the press conference, Vinnie was asked to recall his worst moment in the booth. His LA memory was the 1962 game 3 playoff loss to the Giants. This is also my worst memory as a fan. I was 8 and Vinnie was 35….a shared memory we will each take to our grave, I suspect.
Jeff Todd
Thank you very much. I will give that a watch.
Coliseum, that must have been an experience. Young fan experiences will never leave us, eh? For me: watching Tony Tarasco stand in vain with his back to the wall as Jeffrey Maier stuck his glove over the fence and turned a harmless flyball into a homer.
I’ve always pined for Ebbets Field myself … that’s the one place I’d pick to go see a game if I could travel back in time. I must say, though, going to Dodgers Stadium is an amazing trip back in time in and of itself. It was awesome to be there, just knowing Vin was in the same place, watching the same game.
Doc Halladay
Amazing article Jeff.
I’ve been a fan of Vin since the late 90’s. As a Jays fan, I’ve been stuck with some mediocre broadcasters for much of my life and I remember the first time I ever heard Vin call a game and it was as if I was hypnotized. Vin oozes knowledge and his stories of the all time greats(Sandy, Duke, etc) were a pleasure to hear. I’ve gone out of my way on many occasions just to hear Vin call a Dodgers game. Oh how I envy Dodger fans and having the greatest calling their games for all these years.
Jeff Todd
Thank you. Hypnosis is an apt metaphor … I have enjoyed just putting Vin-called games on softly in the background while writing for the site. Even if you’re not really listening, it’s somehow comforting.
A'sfaninUK
Scully was truly the best, a legend in the game.
It is a true shame that the mlb network and all local team networks operate the opposite way to Vin’s method. All baseball fans really want, are guys like Vin calling the game.
Jeff Todd
Unfortunately, I think that model is largely gone. In Jayson Stark’s piece, Bob Costas commented on the fact that Vin could never get a shot at a booth if he was trying to crack into it now with his style.
A'sfaninUK
If only MLB would poll the fans on this:
Would you rather one person call the game, or seven?
Would love to see the results! Everyone I know loved Vin because he was entertaining, he called the game perfectly, he dropped random factoids about literally every player on the screen, and his last few weeks were really marvelous as he went into anecdotes on his own life. Sigh.
BlueSkyLA
Isn’t that a sad commentary? Vin’s secret, and he even said as much, was he always imagined he was talking directly to a fan. No specific fan, but someone on the other side of the microphone who was as interested in the game as he was. Carve away all the wit, wisdom and poetry Vin added to his calls, and that single feature of his work stands out as the key to why he was so beloved for so long. You’d think sportscasters would be lined up ten deep to borrow this trick, since it works so brilliantly, and it isn’t patented, after all. But no, the current generation of sportscasters are content to sit in the booth and yack with each other, as if the listeners (and often the game) aren’t part of what are doing. They all say how much they admired Vin, but they haven’t taken in the basic lesson of sportscasting that he taught anyone who wanted to learn it.
Anyway, thanks for the wonderful tribute, Jeff. Vin was not only the last of his kind, he was also the best.
jd396
A blind man listening to Vin Scully sees more of the ballgame than most people can see on an HDTV.
Broadcasters seemingly get paid by the syllable these days. They have to fill every second of airtime with something and the end result is that they just BLAB and BLAB and aren’t even talking about the damn game half the time.
You’ll be missed, Vin!
A'sfaninUK
Strongly agreed, compared with Vin about 75% of guys currently calling games are insulting to the profession. No one deserves Harold Reynolds, ever.
jd396
I heard CIA enhanced interrogation techniques involve putting enemy combatants on a leather recliner in front of a TV equipped with a surround sound system. Then they turn the ALDS on. Loud.
Richamamia
Vin was the thread that connected us to past. He didn’t have to read articles about the baseballs greats, he knew them, and would share first hand knowledge of games, incidents, and moments that everyone else could only wonder about. Vin loved working the booth alone because he felt he could talk directly to the listener, realizing all too often that we were the ones left out of the conversation with multiple sportscaster booth. His kind will not pass this way again, and it’s sad. Being able to listen to him exclusively for the last 10 years has spoiled me. Even in the twilight years, he was far and away above his colleagues. I wish they would’ve had Vin scout out and groom his replacement. Not that it’d be Vin, but at least it be something. God bless, Vin.
jd396
You don’t listen to Vin Scully tell you what’s happening, it’s like you hear the game itself.
staypuft
Based Vin also destroyed socialism in one of his somewhat recent broadcasts.
sddew
So well put, Jeff, thanks! I grew up in Southern California in the 60’s and 70’s, and so I was fortunate to watch and listen to Vin Scully on Channel 11 and Dick Enberg calling the Angels games on Channel 5. Add to that the Saturday game of the week with Curt Gowdy, Tony Kubek and Joe Garagiola, and how could I not get hooked?! I also grew to love listening to Jerry Coleman calling the Padres games, and was fortunate enough to meet him and sit in on his broadcast. He, along with Bob Chandler, were probably two of the nicest men I’d ever met. I heard the same about Vin, and would have loved to meet him, and sit in as well. Now I am fortunate enough to get to listen to some of the outstanding remaining “local” broadcasters throughout North America on MLB Extra Innings. The fact we still have some greats like Jon Miller, Gary Thorne, Don Orsillo (what a loss for the Red Sox), and many others makes me hope that kids are getting hooked in the same ways today…maybe not, but we can hope!!
BlueSkyLA
I grew up on the East Coast as a Mets fan listening to Ralph Kiner and Lindsay Nelson. When I moved out here in the mid-70s I was so completely taken by Vin that it was easy to quickly shift over to becoming a Dodgers fan. I mean, if every time you turned turned on the radio or TV that voice floated out, how could you not?
Shakey
For a kid from Toronto, hearing his dulcet tones on late night Dodgers games was a treat. Hearing him call Kirk Gibsons home run is a memory I’ll carry till my grave. Thank you Vin