When Vin Scully was approaching his 67th and final year as the voice of the Dodgers, he quoted, “Do not go gentle into that good night,” the masterpiece from the favorite poet of Thornton Melon, Dylan Thomas.
“He wrote, ‘Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ And I guess in a way that’s what I’m doing. I’m raging against the dying of my career, which has to be around the corner now,” said Scully, then on the cusp of 88.
“But at least for the God-given time that I have left, I’ll be raging.”
But this being Vin Scully, it was always a soft, lyrical rage, filled with master storytelling, wisdom, and, when warranted, like the Mets capturing Game 6 of the 1986 World Series or an injured Kirk Gibson hitting the game-winning home run in the 1988 Fall Classic, moments of silence to soak it all in.
Scully died last week at 94 at his home in Hidden Hills, California. He is survived by three daughters, two sons, 21 grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.
For nearly seven decades, Scully had been the soundtrack of the Dodgers and baseball at large. His tenure, which began in 1950 at Ebbets Field and ended in 2016, bridged generations and coasts and delivered some of the most earth-shattering moments in America’s pastime.
Born in 1927 in the Bronx, Scully was raised in Washington Heights, where he would fall under the spell of the transistor radio filling his ears with the sounds of stadium crowds. Like his idol, New York Giant Mel Ott, Scully was a lefty. He played in the outfield at Fordham University for two years, but he was more of a standout at the school’s radio station calling basketball, football, and later baseball games.
After graduating, he worked at a CBS affiliate in Washington, where he met his future mentor, Red Barber, who also headed up the station’s sports programming. In November 1949, Barber needed someone to work the Boston University-University of Maryland football game at Fenway Park, so he tapped the young upstart. Scully made a rookie mistake. Assuming he’d be sitting in a warm press box, he showed up to the game without a coat or other winter accessories. But he had to call the game from the stadium’s roof in Beantown’s harsh elements. However, the listeners were none the wiser because of his seamless performance.
His grace under freezing temperatures impressed Barber, who hired Scully to fill the third spot on the Brooklyn Dodger’s broadcasting team the next year. In 1953, the then-25-year-old became the youngest person to call a World Series. When the team moved to Los Angeles in 1957, the New Yorker followed, ushering in a new era of baseball and spoiling nascent Dodgers fans, who would bring transistor radios into the stadium to hear him explain what they were seeing live.
His vocal cords provided the smooth verbal backdrop for Sandy Koufax’s perfect game in 1965. And in 1975, when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record, Scully crossed over from baseball broadcaster to historian.
“What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world,” he said. “A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron.”
He shared his oratory skills with other sports, working for CBS and NBC calling golf, tennis, and football, including numerous Super Bowls. In the 1981 NFC Championship game, he narrated “The Catch,” a late fourth-quarter feat in which Joe Montana connected with Dwight Clark to seal the 49ers victory over the Cowboys and the team’s Super Bowl berth.
Though his list of broadcasting milestones was seemingly infinite, he was also known for his grace and humanity away from the microphone. After his death, anecdotes poured in from sports figures and fans alike repeating a similar refrain: Scully always made strangers feel like old friends. Fellow Fordham alumnus and Yankees play-by-play guy Michael Kay told the New York Post’s John Heyman and Joel Sherman that he tried to emulate the New Yorker’s knack for storytelling. But the biggest lesson he soaked up from the veteran was outside of the booth, “Vin Scully had this disarming way. I try to take a little bit of that. … I just try to be nice to people because I felt Vin Scully was always nice to people.”
Mostly working alone, Scully, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, could deftly spin a yarn without missing a pitch in the telling — see his Madison Bumgarner rattlesnake-bunny tale. And most importantly, he forged an indelible relationship with fans, retaining his relevancy and eminence for decades. He was the franchise’s string that joined together pearls such as Jackie Robinson, Tommy Lasorda, Fernando Valenzuela, Sandy Koufax, Don Larsen, and latter-day All-Stars such as Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw. But unlike those wearing a Dodgers jersey, his presence was felt inside everyone’s living room creating an intimate connection with the audience that even he felt, according to his final signoff on Oct. 2, 2016.
“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 needed me,” he said to fans. “And I’ll miss our time together more than I can say.”
A sentiment rippling through the sports world now.
