Broadcasting legend Vin Scully died today at age 94, according to a Dodgers news release. “He was the voice of the Dodgers and so much more. He was their conscience, their poet laureate, captured their beauty and recorded their glory from Jackie Robinson to Sandy Koufax, Kirk Gibson to Clayton Kershaw. Vin Scully was the heartbeat of the Dodgers – and in so many ways, the heartbeat of all of Los Angeles,” the release said.
Of all the legendary voices that have called baseball games over the decades, there’s no debate that Scully was the best of them all, both because of his incredible length in the booth and his unparalleled quality during those 66 years of broadcasting games on Dodgers. Amazingly, Scully was already a Hall of Fame broadcaster even outside of his work with the Dodgers, having covered the NFL, professional golf, tennis and (naturally) baseball’s postseason and All-Star games for such outlets as CBS, NBC, ABC and TBS.
From the beginning to the end of his iconic career, Scully was a master storyteller, finding endlessly inventive and poetic ways to call the action, but never quite surpassing the game on the field. Scully was on the mic for many of the greatest moments in baseball history, adding to those moments both wonderful calls and (just as importantly) poignant silence.
Scully was something of a prodigy, as fairly early in his career he began calling Dodgers games in Brooklyn in 1950 on both television and radio. He was then in the booth until the end of the 2016 season, following the Dodgers to Los Angeles. As noted in the press release, “Vin, like anyone else, connected the franchise to its new city. Fans – not just around town but at the games themselves at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum – will be listening to Vin and his colleague Jerry Doggett on their new transistor radios.”
On behalf of all of us at MLBTR, we send our condolences to Vin Scully’s family and legions of friends and fans.
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