By: Xiu Sun
Vincent Edward Scully (1927-2022), a legendary American sports broadcaster, was best known as an announcer for Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers for 67 seasons (1950-2016).
His distinctive smooth voice has built an intimate connection with families in the car, at home, and in bed each summer night for more than six decades. Every night he delivered fanfare for the common man.
Vin Scully used his voice to paint aural pictures and listeners were left to fill in the colors in their minds. Vin Scully is well-liked and beloved all these years. He won many people’s hearts with his clear voice, honest report, plain wisdom, and poetic language. He was a wonderful storyteller, a genial truth-teller, a poet, a friend, a teacher, and a class act.
Scully had an unworldly capability to see big moments coming. His call of Kirk Gibson’s World Series home run in 1988 is well known. What he said (as follows) before the physically destroyed slugger’s powerful swing is unbelievable.
“All year long, they looked to him to light the fire, and all year long, he answered the demands until he was physically unable to start tonight,” Scully said. And then it happened, and Scully said succinctly: “High flyball into right field. She is gone.”
In the big moments, Scully improvised and trusted his own words, delivering his best work.
When Sandy Koufax, the Dodgers pitcher, started the ninth inning of his perfect game in 1965, between pitches Scully paused and announced the names of all nine Dodgers on the field one by one, the men Koufax would have to rely on to ensure his perfection. “You can almost taste the pressure now,” he said. “There are 29,000 people in the ballpark and a million butterflies.”
And then, after the Dodger’s win and the crowd’s longest time roar in the stadium, Scully set the event in history saying “On the scoreboard in right field, it is 9:46 p.m. in the city of the angels, Los Angeles, California. And a crowd of 29,139 just sitting in to see the only pitcher in baseball history to hurl four no-hit, no-run games. He has done it four straight years, and now he capped it: On his fourth no-hitter, he made it a perfect game.”
On his final broadcast, Scully told his audience “You and I have been friends for a long time. But I know in my heart that I’ve always needed you more than you’ve ever needed me.” He ended the program with a prayer, that “God give you for every storm, a rainbow. For every tear, a smile. For every care, a promise, and a blessing in each trial. For every problem life sends, a faithful friend to share.”
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