Profile of Vin Scully on Famous Like Me

Vincent Edward Scully (born November 29, 1927 in The Bronx, New York) is an American sportscaster, known primarily as the play-by-play voice of Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers baseball games.

In 47 seasons in Los Angeles, Vin Scully has become a beloved figure. His 55-year tenure with the Dodgers is the longest of any broadcaster with a single club in professional sports history. Scully has called six World Series victories and 14 National League pennants for the club.

Scully has received numerous honors: In 1982, he received the Ford Frick Award, inducting him into the broadcaster's wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Twenty-one times, he has been named California Sportscaster of the Year. He received the Life Achievement Emmy Award for sportscasting in 1995, and was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame the same year. The American Sportscasters Association named him Broadcaster of the Century in 2000.

In 1976, Scully was selected by Dodgers' fans as the Most Memorable Personality (on the field or off) in the team's history. In 1998, an L.A. Times Magazine feature article called him "The Most Trusted Man in Los Angeles."

Early life

Growing up in the Washington Heights section of New York, Scully made ends meet by delivering milk and mail, pushing garment racks, and cleaning silver in the basement of the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York City. His father was a silk salesman; his mother a homemaker of Irish descent with red hair like her son.

Vin knew he wanted to be a sports announcer the moment he became fascinated with football broadcasts on his radio. This is despite the fact that at the time, Vin didn't know any sports announcers, had never seen a sports announcer work before, and had never even seen a sporting event in person.

Career in Brooklyn

Scully began his career as a student broadcaster at Fordham University. While at Fordham, he helped form its FM radio station, sang in a barbershop quartet, played center field, got a degree, and sent about 150 letters to stations along the Eastern seaboard. Scully ultimately got only one response, from CBS radio affiliate WTOP in Washington, which made him a fill-in. He was eventually recruited by Red Barber, sports director of the CBS Radio Network, for its college football coverage. Scully impressed his boss with his coverage of a gridiron match from frigid Fenway Park in Boston, despite having to do so from the stadium roof (expecting an enclosed press box, Scully had left his coat and gloves at his hotel, but never mentioned his discomfort on the air).

Barber mentored Scully and told him that if he wanted to be a successful sports announcer he should never be a "homer" (openly showing a rooting interest for the team that employs you), never listen to other announcers, and keep his opinions to himself.

In 1950, Scully joined Barber and Cornelius (Connie) Desmond in the Brooklyn Dodgers' radio and television booths. When Barber got into a salary dispute with World Series sponsor Gillette in 1953, Scully took Barber's spot for the Fall Classic. At the age of 25, Scully became the youngest person to ever broadcast a World Series.

Barber left the Dodgers after the 1953 season (to work for the New York Yankees). With Desmond often sidelined due to problems with alcoholism, Scully eventually became the team's principal announcer.

Scully called the Dodgers' games in Brooklyn until 1957, after which the club moved west, along with the Giants — becoming the first two Major League baseball teams west of St. Louis.

CBS

From 1979 to 1982, and again from 1990 to 1997, Scully was also the lead announcer for CBS Radio Sports' World Series coverage. Between television and radio, he has called all or part of 28 World Series — more than any other announcer.

Like Barber and Mel Allen in the 1940s, Scully retained his credentials in football even as his baseball career blossomed. Scully called National Football League games from 1975 to 1982 for CBS television. One of his most famous calls is Dwight Clark's touchdown catch in the January 10, 1982, NFC Championship Game (which Scully called with Hank Stram), which put the San Francisco 49ers into Super Bowl XVI.

Scully also anchored the network's tennis and PGA Tour golf coverage in the late 1970s and early 1980s, usually working the golf events with Pat Summerall, Ken Venturi, and Ben Wright. From 1979 to 1982, he was part of the team that covered the Masters for CBS. He has also done golf coverage for NBC and ABC television.

NBC

Outside of Southern California, Vin Scully is probably best remembered for being NBC television's lead baseball announcer from 1983 to 1989, earning aproximately $2 million per year. Besides calling the Saturday Game of the Week for NBC, Scully called three World Series (1984, 1986, and 1988), four National League Championship Series (1983, 1985, 1987, and 1989), and four All-Star Games (1983, 1985, 1987, and 1989). Scully also reworked his Dodgers schedule during this period, as he would only broadcast home games on the radio and road games for television.

Teaming with Joe Garagiola for NBC telecasts (with the exception of 1989 when Scully teamed with Tom Seaver), Scully was on hand for many remarkable moments: Fred Lynn hitting the first grand slam in All-Star Game history (1983); the powerful 1984 Detroit Tigers winning the World Championship; Ozzie Smith's dramatic game-winning home run in Game 5 of the 1985 National League Championship Series; the mind-boggling sixth game of the 1986 World Series; the thrilling 1987 All-Star Game in Oakland, which was deadlocked at 0-0 before Tim Raines broke up the scoreless tie with a triple in the top of the 13th inning; the first official night game in the history of Chicago's Wrigley Field (August 9, 1988); Kirk Gibson's dramatic game-winning home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series; and, chatting with Ronald Reagan in the booth during the 1989 All-Star Game in Anaheim.

After the 1989 season, NBC would lose the television rights to cover Major League Baseball to CBS. It was the first time that NBC wouldn't be able to televise baseball since 1946. In the aftermath, Scully said of NBC losing baseball, "It's a passing of a great American tradition. It is sad. I really and truly feel that. It will leave a vast window, to use a Washington word, where people will not get Major League Baseball and I think that's a tragedy. ... It's a staple that's gone. I feel for people who come to me and say how they miss it and, I hope, me."

1999 and beyond

In 1999, Scully was the master of ceremonies for MasterCard's All Century Team before the start of Game 2 of the World Series. Also in 1999, Scully appeared in the movie For Love of the Game.

In recent years, Scully cut back his work schedule to approximately 110 games a year (though he has no plans to retire in the foreseeable future). Usually, he will call the first three innings of a Dodgers game via a radio-and-television simulcast, then the rest exclusively for television.

Scully will normally not call a game that takes place east of the Rockies; in addition, Scully reportedly won't attend or watch a baseball game that he isn't announcing. It wasn't until the year 2004, when he and his boss, Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, attended Fenway Park, that Scully was at a baseball game simply as a spectator.

Memorable Calls

One of Scully's most memorable moments from his early years in Los Angeles is his commentary on the perfect game pitched by Sandy Koufax in 1965.

Concluding Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, Scully uttered arguably the most famous call of his career: "A little roller up along first ... behind the (first-base) bag ... it gets through Buckner! Here comes Knight ... and the Mets win it!" Scully then remained silent for approximately 2 minutes and 30 seconds, letting the pictures and the crowd tell the story. Scully finally said, "If one picture is worth a thousand words, you have seen about a million words, but more then that, you have seen an absolutely bizarre finish to Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. The Mets are not only alive, they are well, and they will play the Red Sox in Game 7 tomorrow!"

Two years later, in Game 1 of the World Series, Scully made a call that no Los Angeles baseball fan will ever forget, when Kirk Gibson of the Dodgers hit a dramatic, walk-off, two-run home run to beat the Oakland Athletics 5-4. Over the course of the season, Gibson had injured both legs (to swing a bat, Scully announced, Gibson would only be able to use his upper-body strength, because "he can't push off [with the back leg], and he can't land [on the front leg].") and was being treated in the trainer's room, out of sight, during the entire game. In the ninth (and final) inning, pinch-hitter Mike Davis was awarded first base on a two-out walk, "and look who's coming up," Scully said. After two strikes, Gibson hit a ball on the ground, limped about 50 feet toward first base before the ball bounced foul, "...and it had to be an effort to run that far." Finally, on a 3-balls, 2-strikes pitch to Gibson from relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley, Scully was as stunned as anyone when he nearly screamed, "High fly ball into right field, she i-i-i-is... gone!!!" Holding to his long-standing belief that the noise of the fans best tells the story, Scully did not speak for 67 seconds before announcing, incredulously, "In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened!" Later, Scully said to his broadcast partner (Garagiola) and to the viewers, "What an opening act, huh? I think we've got a leading man, and many of them, between now and the end of this great 1988 World Series." Kirk Gibson would not make another appearance in the series, which the Dodgers won, 4 games to 1. Scully would later say that he was still in such disbelief several hours later, he couldn't sit down.

While at the 1989 All-Star Game, Scully watched the gifted and versatile Bo Jackson, who was leading off for the American League, hit a towering home run off of Rick Reuschel. The ball that Jackson hit sailed high and far, soared over the center-field fence, and landed an estimated four-hundred-forty-eight feet from home plate. Scully reacted to the homer by saying on the NBC telecast "And look at that one! Bo Jackson says hello!"

The final Major League Baseball game that Vin Scully called for NBC was on October 9, 1989. Scully was at San Francisco's Candlestick Park to broadcast Game 5 of the National League Championship Series between the San Francisco Giants and Chicago Cubs. The Giants were on the brink of winning their first National League pennant in 27 years. In a moment that no San Francisco baseball fan will ever forget, Giants first baseman (and eventual NLCS MVP) Will Clark broke up a 1-1 tie in the bottom of the 8th inning after getting a base hit (with the bases loaded) off of the Cubs' relief ace, Mitch Williams. Prior to the showdown between Clark and Williams, Scully summarized it by simply saying "I guess we figured it should come down to this." Clark took the first fastball for a strike, then fouled one away. Williams' next pitch missed the outside corner to bring the count to 1-and-2. After Clark fouled off two more pitches, he hit a screaming line drive up the middle to bring in two runs. "Line drive, base hit into center field! In comes one, in comes Butler, going to third is Thompson! 3 to 1 San Francisco!!!" After Giants pitcher Steve Bedrosian gave up a run in the top of the 9th, he was able to get Ryne Sandberg to ground out and end the game. "Breaking ball hit to Robby Thompson...and that's it!"

On October 27, 1991, Scully (calling the game for CBS Radio) was on hand for a game considered by fans to be one of the most intense in the sport's history. Game 7 of the already exciting World Series (between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves) was scoreless going into the 9th inning, and an emotionally drained Scully said, "after eight full innings of play, Atlanta nothing, Minnesota nothing... I think we'll be back in just a moment." In the bottom of the 10th inning, Gene Larkin won the game for the Twins with a high fly-ball into left field (which allowed Dan Gladden to score) off of Alejandro Peña.

On October 2, 2004, the Los Angeles Dodgers clinched the NL West Division title with a seven-run 9th inning rally capped by Steve Finley's walk-off grand slam home run. Scully, doing the radio broadcast for KFWB AM 980, exclaimed "High fly ball into deep right field! Wherever it goes, the Dodgers have won and it's a grand slam home run."

For regular Dodger Stadium fans, however, every game that Scully has called has been ripe with memorable observations and ad libs. Scully enjoyed an easy rapport with the home-team fans and never criticized them, even when they would leave a Dodgers' game in the seventh inning in order to make their way out of the parking lot before the rest of the stadium emptied out. Between calls, Scully would give tongue-in-cheek observations of what was going on in and around the playing field. During one Sunday afternoon Dodgers rout, fans began leaving the stadium en masse in the seventh inning. "You know what they say in opera: 'It's not over 'til the fat lady sings,'" Scully ad-libbed. "Well, folks, the fat lady is singing in the parking lot!"

Criticism

Scully has sometimes been criticized for his decisions to not mention certain distasteful off-field circumstances involving the Dodgers during baseball broadcasts. The night before the 1981 baseball strike began, while the impending strike was the talk of the sports world, Scully never even mentioned it. But, as he always had done, he did promote tickets for upcoming games—games that were never played. In 1978, Scully chose to avoid any mention of a much publicized fight between Dodgers Steve Garvey and Don Sutton, even though it was the lead story the next day in the Los Angeles Times.

Tragedy

Scully has endured a pair of personal tragedies in his life. In 1972, his 35-year-old wife, Joan Crawford (no relation to the actress), died of an accidental medical overdose, although many have blamed her death on her fragile emotional state at the time. Scully was suddenly a widowed father of three after 15 years of marriage. (In late 1973, he married Sandra Schaefer, who had two children of her own, and they soon would bear another child together.) In 1994, Scully's eldest son, Michael, died in a helicopter crash at the age of 33 while working for ARCO Transportation Company. Although Michael's death still haunts him, Vin credits his faith and being able to delve back into his career with helping him ease the burden and grief.

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