LOS ANGELES (AP) – Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully, whose dulcet tones provided the soundtrack to summer as he entertained and informed Dodgers fans in Brooklyn and Los Angeles for 67 years, has died tuesday night He was 94 years old.
Scully died at her home in the Hidden Hills section of Los Angeles, according to the team after being notified by family members.
“We have lost an icon,” team president and CEO Stan Kasten said in a statement. “His voice will always be heard and engraved in all our minds forever.”
As the longest-tenured single-team broadcaster in professional sports history, Scully saw it all and said it all. It started in the 1950s with Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson, in the 1960s with Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax, in the 1970s with Steve Garvey and Don Sutton, and in the 1980s with Orel Hershiser and Fernando Valenzuela In the 1990s, it was Mike Piazza and Hideo Nomo, followed by Clayton Kershaw, Manny Ramirez and Yasiel Puig in the 21st century.
The Dodgers changed players, managers, executives, owners, and even coasts, but Scully and his calm and insightful style remained a constant for fans.
He opened the broadcasts with the familiar greeting: “Hello everyone, and a very nice evening to you wherever you are.”
Always affable both in person and on air, Scully saw himself as merely a conduit between the game and the fans.
The Dodgers beat the Giants 9-5 in San Francisco on Tuesday night. Afterwards, a tribute to Scully was shown on the video board.
“There’s no better storyteller and I think everybody considers him family,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “He was in our living rooms for many generations. He lived a fantastic life, a legacy that will live on forever.”
Even though he was being paid by the Dodgers, Scully wasn’t afraid to criticize a bad play or a manager’s decision, or praise an opponent while telling stories against a backdrop of routine plays and notable hits. He always said he wanted to see things with his eyes, not his heart.
“Vin Scully was one of the greatest voices in all of sports. He was a giant of a man, not only as a broadcaster, but as a humanitarian,” Kasten said. “He loved people. He loved life. He loved baseball and the Dodgers. And he loved his family. I know he was looking. forward to joining the love of his life, Sandi.”
Vincent Edward Scully was born on November 29, 1927 in the Bronx. He was the son of a silk salesman who died of pneumonia when Scully was 7 years old. Her mother moved the family to Brooklyn, where red-haired, blue-eyed Scully grew up playing stickball in the streets.
As a child, Scully would take a pillow, place it under the family’s four-legged radio, and stick her head directly under the speaker to hear any college football game on the air. With a snack of pretzels and a glass of milk nearby, the boy was caught up in the goosebumps of the crowd’s roar. He thought he’d like to call the action himself.
A two-year outfielder for Fordham University’s baseball team, Scully began his career working baseball, football and basketball games for the university’s radio station.
At age 22, he was hired by a CBS radio affiliate in Washington, DC
He soon joined Hall of Famers Red Barber and Connie Desmond in the radio and television booths for the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1953, at age 25, Scully became the youngest person to broadcast a World Series game, a mark that still stands.
He moved west with the Dodgers in 1958. Scully pitched three perfect games — Don Larsen in the 1956 World Series, Sandy Koufax in 1965 and Dennis Martinez in 1991 — and 18 no-hitters.
It was also in the air when Don Drysdale set his 58 2/3-inning scoreless streak in 1968 and again when Hershiser broke the record with 59 consecutive scoreless innings 20 years later.
When Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run to break Babe Ruth’s record in 1974, it was against the Dodgers, and of course Scully called it.
“A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking an all-time baseball idol record,” Scully told listeners. “What a wonderful time for baseball.”
Scully credited the birth of the transistor radio as “the best break” of his career. Fans had trouble recognizing minor players during the Dodgers’ first four years at the great Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
“They were 70 rows or less from the action,” he said in 2016. “They brought the radio to find out all the other players and see what they were trying to see on the field.”
This habit continued when the team moved to Dodger Stadium in 1962. Fans wore radios to their ears, and those not present listened from their homes or cars, allowing Scully connects generations of families with her words.
He often said it was best to describe a big play quickly and then shut up so the fans could hear the pandemonium. After Koufax’s perfect game in 1965, Scully was silent for 38 seconds before speaking again. Similarly, he was silent for a while after Kirk Gibson’s home run to win the first game of the 1988 World Series.
He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that year, and also had his name on the stadium press pole in 2001. The Street That Leads at the front gate of Dodger Stadium was named in his honor. in 2016.
That same year he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.
“God has been so good to me to allow me to do what I’m doing,” said Scully, a devout Catholic who attended mass on Sundays before going to the football field, before retiring. “A childhood dream that came true and then gave me 67 years to enjoy every minute of it. This is a big Thanksgiving for me.”
In addition to being the voice of the Dodgers, Scully called play-by-play for NFL games and PGA Tour events, as well as calling 25 World Series and 12 All-Star Games. He was NBC’s primary baseball announcer from 1983 to 1989.
Despite being one of the most listened to broadcasters in the country, Scully was an intensely private man. Once the baseball season was over, it would be gone. He rarely made personal appearances or sports talk shows. He preferred to spend time with his family.
In 1972, his first wife, Joan, died of an accidental drug overdose. He was left with three small children. Two years later, he met the woman who would become his second wife, Sandra, secretary of the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams. He had two young children from a previous marriage, and they combined their families into what Scully called “my own Brady Bunch.”
He said he realized that time was the most precious thing in the world and he wanted to use his time to spend with his loved ones. In the early 1960s, Scully quit smoking with the help of her family. In the pocket of her shirt where she kept a pack of cigarettes, Scully taped a family photo. Whenever he felt the need to smoke, he would take out the photo to remind him why he quit smoking. Eight months later, Scully never smoked again.
After retiring in 2016, Scully made just a handful of appearances at Dodger Stadium and his sweet voice was heard narrating an occasional video that played during games. Mostly, he was content to stay close to home.
“I just want to be remembered as a good man, an honest man and someone who stood up to his own beliefs,” he said in 2016.
In 2020, Scully auctioned off years of her personal memorabilia, which raised over $2 million. A portion was donated to UCLA for ALS research.
He was preceded in death by his second wife, Sandra. He died of complications from ALS aged 76 in 2021. The couple, who were married for 47 years, had a daughter Catherine together.
Scully’s other children are Kelly, Erin, Todd, and Kevin. One son, Michael, died in a helicopter crash in 1994.
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Former Associated Press staffer Stan Miller contributed biographical information to this report.
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