In Memoriam: Baseball Mourns Loss Of One-Of-A-Kind Broadcaster Vin Scully
Image credit: Vin Scully (George Rose/Getty Images)
Who’s the best baseball player ever?
The question has many defensible answers.
Ask about the best baseball broadcaster of all-time and there’s only one answer: Vin Scully.
Scully died on Aug. 2. He was 94. He had retired in 2016 after 67 years at the microphone as Dodgers broadcaster.
There has never been a better blend of man and moment than when Scully began broadcasting Brooklyn Dodgers games in 1950. He then went on to broadcast baseball for another 67 years. It’s a longevity that defies belief.
Scully was the soundtrack of summer for four generations of baseball fans.
Scully broadcast the iconic “Dem Bums” Dodgers teams of the 1950s, including the 1955 World Series championship team that featured Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges and manager Walter Alston.
Scully was at the microphone for the only perfect game in World Series history, thrown by the Yankees’ Don Larsen in 1956.
Scully relocated to Los Angeles when the Dodgers headed west in 1958. He was the broadcaster of Sandy Koufax’s dominance in the 1960s. He was there when Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, Davey Lopes and Bill Russell rose to stardom in the 1970s, and he was still there long after they retired.
He was at the microphone when Mookie Wilson’s dribbler got past Bill Buckner in the wild Game 6 of the 1986 World Series between the Mets and Red Sox. He was on the mic when Kirk Gibson’s pinch-hit home run won Game 1 of the 1988 World Series for the Dodgers, setting the state for an unlikely victory against the Athletics.
Scully was the broadcaster for the even bigger moment of Hank Aaron’s 715th home run in 1974.
But Scully’s best moments were on a lazy summer day in the middle of an unspectacular game. A master storyteller, Scully could weave seemingly anything into the fabric of the moment.
There will never be another Vin Scully, but it was fortunate that everyone could enjoy his talent for so many years.
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