Broadcasting legend Vin Scully died today at the age of 94, according to a Dodgers press release. “He was the voice of the Dodgers and more. He was their conscience, their poet laureate, capturing their beauty and chronicling their glory from Jackie Robinson to Sandy Koufax, from Kirk Gibson to Clayton Kershaw. Vin Scully was the the heartbeat of the Dodgers and, in many ways, the heartbeat of all of Los Angeles,” the statement read.
For all the legendary voices that have called baseball games over the decades, there is little debate that Scully was the best of them all, both for the incredible length of his tenure in the booth and his unmatched quality during these 66 years of broadcasting. Dodgers games. Amazingly, Scully was already a Hall of Fame broadcaster, even aside from his work with the Dodgers, covering the NFL, pro golf, tennis and (of course) postseason baseball games and All-Star for outlets like CBS, NBC, ABC and TBS.
From the beginning to the end of his iconic career, Scully was a master storyteller, finding endless inventive and poetic ways to call the action, but never overwhelming the game on the field. Scully was on the mic for many of the biggest moments in baseball history, adding to those moments with wonderful calls and poignant (equally important) silences.
Scully was something of a prodigy as early in his career he began calling Dodgers games in Brooklyn in 1950 on both television and radio broadcasts. He was then in the bullpen until the end of the 2016 season, after the Dodgers in Los Angeles. As the press release notes, “It was Vin as much as anyone who tied the franchise to its new city. Fans, not only in the city, but at the games themselves at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, would listen to the his new transistor radios to Vin and his colleague Jerry Doggett.”
On behalf of all of us at MLBTR, we send our condolences to Vin Scully’s family and legions of friends and fans.