Vin Scully must surely be the world’s greatest baseball fan. Although no one has been keeping score, I’d wager that Mr. Scully has been to more baseball games than anyone else on the planet. He started as the voice of the Brooklyn Dodgers way back in 1950, and he’s still at it.
If calling a baseball game can be elevated to art, Vin Scully is the guy to do it. Fans tune in his games just to hear his voice and listen to the wonderful prose that comes out of the speakers as Scully tells yet another story about Gil Hodges or Jackie Robinson, this is the game of baseball in its finest representation.
When other commentators would say, “It’s a beautiful afternoon here at the ballpark”, Vin Scully comes out with “It’s a cotton candy sky with a canopy of blue. It looks good enough to eat.” You’ve got to love the guy.
Even the announcer’s booth that Scully calls the games from at Dodger’s Stadium is named after him and rightly so. Mr. Scully has been with the Dodgers organization longer than anyone else there, much longer. Inside will be found two boxes stuffed with index cards the Scully has written and collected over the years. Those cards will probably make a great book one of these days.
All pro sports teams print out stories and profiles on their players and personnel for distribution to the media, but Vin Scully’s stories and profiles always seem to go a bit deeper, to reach out and touch his listeners and share his passion for the game which is still oh so evident even after all these years.
At 85 years old, Mr. Scully still does his own research and keeps his own scorebook which is always in front of him at the games in a custom built leather binder. Key statistics are kept off to the side for quick and easy reference, these too, prepared by Scully.
At last year’s Rose Bowl Parade they made Vin Scully the Master of Ceremonies and his popularity with the crowd was evident throughout the route of the parade as he rode with his wife in a beautiful old convertible surrounded, of course, by roses.
In the broadcast booth Scully keeps a packet of ‘Jolly Rancher’ candies close at hand for those times when his throat gets dry. He says he does it to keep from drinking too much water and then missing even one pitch of the game because he had to run off to the restroom. Now that’s dedication to the game at its highest level.
