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RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

G-Fafif Aug 02 2022 09:47 PM

The greatest baseball announcer who ever lived has died at 94.

Edgy MD Aug 02 2022 09:53 PM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

No words. None.

Marshmallowmilkshake Aug 02 2022 10:26 PM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

The phrase is overused, but undeniably accurate here. He was a national treasure.

seawolf17 Aug 03 2022 01:50 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

I've always loved how our greatest highlight forever has his voice attached.

Fman99 Aug 03 2022 04:46 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

Went back and listened to some of Vin's calls this morning. Somehow I missed the fact that Aaron's 715th HR in 1974 sailed over the head of Dodgers LF Bill Buckner.

roger_that Aug 03 2022 05:14 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

=seawolf17 post_id=102072 time=1659513015 user_id=91] I've always loved how our greatest highlight forever has his voice attached.

How did Scully get to announce the fly ball landing in Cleon's glove?

Fman99 Aug 03 2022 05:15 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

I admire, too, how often he was able to stop talking and let the moment speak for itself. I feel like that's a lost art in broadcasting nowadays.

Lefty Specialist Aug 03 2022 06:00 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

=seawolf17 post_id=102072 time=1659513015 user_id=91] I've always loved how our greatest highlight forever has his voice attached.

YES! Vin Scully will live forever for me because of that.

Frayed Knot Aug 03 2022 06:01 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

=Fman99 post_id=102075 time=1659525306 user_id=86] I admire, too, how often he was able to stop talking and let the moment speak for itself. I feel like that's a lost art in broadcasting nowadays.

Very much this.

The standard today is for the announcer to look for an opportunity to 'put his mark on the game' and, in doing so, shout all over what the viewer

can see for himself anyway. Good lord, just take some of Vin Scully's calls but reimagine them with Chris Berman in his stead stomping all over

the action!!

nymr83 Aug 03 2022 06:16 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

It works both ways, you can not shut up and be good too. Gary's call of the Bartolo homerun enhances rather than detracts from it for example.

MFS62 Aug 03 2022 06:20 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

No words. Just a feeling that something is missing from our lives. RIP Later

Edgy MD Aug 03 2022 06:37 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

Surreal moment in that Aaron clip of Hank taking a moment to accept congratulations from Chief Noc-a-homa.

kcmets Aug 03 2022 08:18 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

Baseball Reference Biographical Info Page

Willets Point Aug 03 2022 08:21 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

It just boggles my mind that he was calling games when my dad was a kid in Brooklyn and was still calling games after my kids were born.

Frayed Knot Aug 03 2022 08:30 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

It works both ways, you can not shut up and be good too. Gary's call of the Bartolo homerun enhances rather than detracts from it for example. It's not that you say nothing -- you are there to describe the action after all -- it's that you also know how and when to back off and let the moment speak for itself. Just now rewatching the Bartolo clip (over two minute's worth) Gary calls the HR with the astonishment that the event deserves as Bart rounds 1st and heads for 2nd. But then he pretty much shuts up until picking it up again as he hits 3rd with the news that the players had vacated the dugout. Ronnie doesn't chime in until after Bart crosses the plate. Was Gary's "This is one of the great moments in the history of baseball" over the top? Maybe, but only if you take it too literally [Chris Russo]. Mainly it's just a difference in attitude, the difference between describing the action when necessary vs feeling that each moment is somehow lessened unless your voice is all over it.

TransMonk Aug 03 2022 09:04 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

He was the voice of one of my most memorable baseball calls of all time. Behind the bag... RIP

MFS62 Aug 03 2022 09:54 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

Willets Point wrote: It just boggles my mind that he was calling games when my dad was a kid in Brooklyn and was still calling games after my kids were born. He was calling games when I was a kid in Brooklyn. He was the voice of my childhood and of the team I rooted for. And that's why this hit me hard. Later

G-Fafif Aug 03 2022 11:26 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

[tweet]https://twitter.com/snytv/status/1554686129244438528[/tweet]

roger_that Aug 03 2022 11:27 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

Nice story here: https://twitter.com/tipping_pitches/status/1554677964872228869 [TWEET]https://twitter.com/tipping_pitches/status/1554677964872228869[/TWEET]

Edgy MD Aug 03 2022 12:33 PM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

"Erudite, economical, lyrical." — Gary Cohen

Benjamin Grimm Aug 03 2022 02:00 PM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

SNY just played a few Vin Scully clips. I've seen that ground ball go through Buckner's legs dozens, maybe hundreds, of times, and it still gives me goosebumps. Thirty-six years later!

Frayed Knot Aug 03 2022 02:09 PM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

Is Rip Vin Scully any relation to Rip Van Winkle?

Edgy MD Aug 03 2022 02:19 PM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

Benjamin Grimm wrote: SNY just played a few Vin Scully clips. I've seen that ground ball go through Buckner's legs dozens, maybe hundreds, of times, and it still gives me goosebumps. Thirty-six years later! What's wonderful is that Joe Garagiola is in that booth, too, and he says maybe two words the entire rally. Somehow, despite having a big personality of his own, he realized that the moment was so big that there was no grace or elucidation to the events that he could add that Scully couldn't bring on his own. And then when everything climaxed, Scully realized it was time for him to shut up also. Who knows when the exact time to finally come back in was? But when Scully does, it sure feels like a filmmaker edited it a dozen times before finding the exact right spot and tone. I can make too much of that, but as Cohen said, the amazing thing is that he was preparing to make a very different call — one with less on-the-spot drama perhaps but with more historical weight. I certainly couldn't appreciate that then, because 100% of me considered the Mets to be the story. But he pivoted from one story to a very different one like it was nothing.

The Hot Corner Aug 03 2022 08:39 PM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

RIP Vin Scully. He was simply the best at his craft.

G-Fafif Aug 04 2022 09:30 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

Steve Rushin on how Vin Scully connected his dots in his final broadcast, October the second, 2016: His life changed forever when he was 8 years old, as he recounted on one Dodgers broadcast six years ago, while Matt Moore pitched for the Giants against the Dodgers. The Dodgers are trailing 5–1 in the top of the sixth. We'll let Vin tell the story: “On this day, October the second, 1936, a little redheaded kid was walking home from school, went by a Chinese laundry and—I'll tell ya the rest of the story, but let's get back to the game. ... We'll talk about the redheaded kid in a minute, but right now another redheaded kid is getting into the box: Justin Turner, followed by Seager and Puig. So you can see how the game is so constructed for you. I'm telling about a little redhead, and here's Turner. Remarkable production. And the first pitch to Justin way inside ball one. Yeah, the little kid, not quite 9—8 and three-quarters—leaving grammar school, on his way home, and I went by a Chinese laundry—that's way outside, two balls and no strikes—and the line score of a baseball game was pasted on the, on the window, and it showed Game 2 of the World Series, with the Yankees beating the Giants 18 to 4, as Turner fouls the ball back. There it was, Game 2, imagine, a reserved seat cost five bucks. Well anyway, that little redheaded kid looked and saw, oh, poor Giants. That was my reaction. And so I became not only a Giants fan, but a big fan of baseball. And I was able to exercise my instinct—the pitch to Turner is away, 2-and-1—because my school was less than 20 blocks to the old Polo Grounds, where the New York Giants played. And because I was a member of the Police Athletic League, Catholic Youth Organization, I could get in a game free from Monday to Friday. We'd get out of school at 2:30, Giants games were at 3:15, and so I could go to the ballgame. And so I just fell in love with baseball. Most of the time I was in center field. Now center field in the Polo Grounds was 483 feet away, as Turner strikes out one down. So I would sit in the bleachers and I would cheer and I would watch and I just loved the Giants. Well, the point of the whole story is this: My first love was October the second, 1936, second game of the World Series. Today is October the second, 2016. A lot of time has gone by, exactly 80 years to the minute from the day I looked at the line score of that World Series.” Here, the analog clock at AT&T Park in San Francisco confirmed it was 2:04 Pacific time. “So when I looked at the schedule and I knew I was going to retire, I thought: I have to do that game,” Vin said. “It was as if it was ordained that I would do this game.” https://www.si.com/mlb/2022/08/04/vin-scully-daily-cover

roger_that Aug 04 2022 09:34 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

All these heartwarming Vin Scully stories lead me to conclude that he is a fictional character. Has anyone ever seen Vin and Scully together at the same time?

G-Fafif Aug 04 2022 09:35 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

The bakery customer of tributes, as it takes the cake… [tweet]https://twitter.com/sfgiants/status/1555009245166284801[/tweet]

G-Fafif Aug 04 2022 12:29 PM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

Bryan Curtis on how Scully continued to thrive in the contemporary media environment: Long before his death Tuesday at age 94, Scully was the rare announcer who had something close to a 100 percent approval rating. Scully was loved by the graying keepers of baseball's flame. By Angelenos and non-Angelenos. By media writers, who beckoned him to come out of the bullpen and call an inning of the World Series before he retired. Even the proprietors of Old Deadspin collected his musings on socialism and drug paraphernalia. I believe there are announcers who can call a baseball game with a semblance of Scully's skill. Few will make viewers want to give them a hug. What was lovable about Scully, first and foremost, was his manner, which was avuncular until it was grandfatherly. Listen to Scully call Kirk Gibson's hop-along homer in the 1988 World Series. “High fly ball into right field,” he said, the electricity creeping through his voice, “she is … gone!” That “she” is something else, a pronoun Scully managed to smuggle into the '80s. Scully always offered a portal to baseball's past. He was like a Joe Posnanski column in a powder-blue sports coat. Curt Smith's biography notes that, as a kid, Scully liked to slide underneath the family's radio, so that he could be surrounded by the sound of distant games. Scully went to college at Fordham (later the way station for Mike Breen and Michael Kay). In 1950, the Brooklyn Dodgers gave him a spot on the broadcast team. Five years later, at age 27, Scully got to say, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Brooklyn Dodgers are the champions of the world.” Viewers may love announcers for their wiseassery (Al Michaels) or bracing, full-on confessional (Joe Buck). On the air, Scully offered nothing but smiles. “I'm the great cover-up,” he told Rick Reilly in 1985. “I don't talk about my sadness. … [Tommy] Lasorda always says to me: ‘You're always happy.' Well, I'm not always happy, but I try to act like I am.” Scully's career fell in such a way that allowed his fixed smile to stay in place. In 1975, when he went national with CBS, the Dodgers allowed him to remain on their broadcasts. Most announcers are known for their team logo or the emblem on their network blazer. Scully wore both and was bigger for it. On the night Scully called Gibson's home run, he was 60 years old—only seven years older than Buck is today. But NBC lost the rights to baseball the next year. It was the last time Scully ever called a World Series on TV. After that, Scully mostly retreated to Dodgers broadcasts, where he spent the next 28 years aging gracefully in front of people who loved him unconditionally. There were few critics wondering whether Scully had lost his fastball, no Funhouse Twitter account, no demand for a succession plan. It always amused me to see people who had never lived in Los Angeles talk about driving around and listening to Scully on a summer night. Tucked away on the West Coast, Scully became something bigger than an announcer. He became a collective memory. Study Scully's career and you'll see the TV industry showed him no more reverence than it did any other broadcaster. Scully called Dwight Clark's catch in the 1982 NFC Championship Game. “I got on the airplane, flying back home, and I thought, ‘You know what? It can't get much better than that,'” Scully said later. “That would be a great game to walk off on. And so by the time that plane landed, I had quit football.” In fact, that season, CBS had pitted Scully against Pat Summerall in a public bake-off to see who would make a better partner for John Madden. The network decided that Scully and Madden were volume shooters who wouldn't work well together. So Summerall got the midcareer turbo boost and the '82 Super Bowl; Scully got the NFC Championship Game as what turned out to be a parting gift. He left CBS for NBC. https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2022/8/3/23290525/vin-scully-forever

G-Fafif Aug 04 2022 12:36 PM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

George Vecsey on the transcontinental impact: At the end of the 1957 baseball season, Brooklyn Dodgers management packed up for a long-threatened move across the continent. Into the hypothetical moving trunks went the home uniforms saying “Dodgers” across the front, the creaky old heroes of Flatbush and much of the front office, plus Manager Walter Alston and his promising young players. (They were not quite sure whether the young lefty from Brooklyn, Sandy Koufax, would ever harness his velocity.) Baseball was moving to the Promised Land. The historic New York Giants were also moving, to San Francisco, taking Willie Mays with them. (The noive of them.) But nothing or nobody in the latter-day covered wagons would transport and transplant baseball to the Left Coast better than a young man not long removed from the Fordham campus in the Bronx and the broadcasting booth in Brooklyn named Vin Scully. More than anybody or anything, Vin Scully sent baseball floating into the ozone — first from the ill-shaped Coliseum, and then, starting in 1962, from the pastel oasis on a former Mexican camp nestled into Chavez Ravine. Scully was the warm voice wafting out into a warm climate, instructing the locals in the fine points of big-league baseball. (We sullen, forsaken Dodgers and Giants fans back east liked to think Californians knew nothing about baseball, Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams notwithstanding.) On soft evenings in Chavez Ravine, the common denominator was not crowd noise or public-address announcements but the play-by-play narration of Scully and his sidekicks, discussing strategy as well as the past heroics of Messrs. Hodges and Reese and Snider and Erskine and Furillo, most of them operating on fading batteries. Scully's dulcet voice floated on stereophonic waves from new gadgets called “transistor radios,” easy to carry into the ballpark. He was not the normal homer baseball announcer who was prone to saying things like, “Let's get us a few runs this inning!” Vincent Edward Scully, who died Tuesday at 94, never shouted, never rooted, never patronized, never sermonized — just called plays and added personal notes about the players. His mellow, pull-up-a-chair approach was like having a beloved elder explain the game unfolding on the field. In 1958, only 30, Vin Scully was the repository for the history of a franchise beloved in another world. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/03/sports/baseball/vin-scully-dodgers.html

Edgy MD Aug 04 2022 05:56 PM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

Steve Rushin on how Vin Scully connected his dots in his final broadcast, October the second, 2016: His life changed forever when he was 8 years old, as he recounted on one Dodgers broadcast six years ago, while Matt Moore pitched for the Giants against the Dodgers. The Dodgers are trailing 5–1 in the top of the sixth. We'll let Vin tell the story: “On this day, October the second, 1936, a little redheaded kid was walking home from school, went by a Chinese laundry and—I'll tell ya the rest of the story, but let's get back to the game. ... We'll talk about the redheaded kid in a minute, but right now another redheaded kid is getting into the box: Justin Turner, followed by Seager and Puig. So you can see how the game is so constructed for you. I'm telling about a little redhead, and here's Turner. Remarkable production. And the first pitch to Justin way inside ball one. Yeah, the little kid, not quite 9—8 and three-quarters—leaving grammar school, on his way home, and I went by a Chinese laundry—that's way outside, two balls and no strikes—and the line score of a baseball game was pasted on the, on the window, and it showed Game 2 of the World Series, with the Yankees beating the Giants 18 to 4, as Turner fouls the ball back. There it was, Game 2, imagine, a reserved seat cost five bucks. Well anyway, that little redheaded kid looked and saw, oh, poor Giants. That was my reaction. And so I became not only a Giants fan, but a big fan of baseball. And I was able to exercise my instinct—the pitch to Turner is away, 2-and-1—because my school was less than 20 blocks to the old Polo Grounds, where the New York Giants played. And because I was a member of the Police Athletic League, Catholic Youth Organization, I could get in a game free from Monday to Friday. We'd get out of school at 2:30, Giants games were at 3:15, and so I could go to the ballgame. And so I just fell in love with baseball. Most of the time I was in center field. Now center field in the Polo Grounds was 483 feet away, as Turner strikes out one down. So I would sit in the bleachers and I would cheer and I would watch and I just loved the Giants. Well, the point of the whole story is this: My first love was October the second, 1936, second game of the World Series. Today is October the second, 2016. A lot of time has gone by, exactly 80 years to the minute from the day I looked at the line score of that World Series.” Here, the analog clock at AT&T Park in San Francisco confirmed it was 2:04 Pacific time. “So when I looked at the schedule and I knew I was going to retire, I thought: I have to do that game,” Vin said. “It was as if it was ordained that I would do this game.” https://www.si.com/mlb/2022/08/04/vin-scully-daily-cover This is great. Much is made of him being born in the Bronx, but whatever right of first refusal the Yankees may have had on his soul, he did most of his growing up in Washington Heights.

Edgy MD Aug 06 2022 09:50 PM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

Are you a WFUV listener? Worth noting that Vin Scully was one of the station's founders.

Willets Point Aug 06 2022 10:35 PM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

And to think that my Great Aunt Kay wouldn't have been able to listen to Irish music on the radio without Vin Scully.

Edgy MD Aug 07 2022 07:29 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

Their award for excellence in sports broadcasting is named for him.

MFS62 Aug 07 2022 08:37 AM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

I'll admit it. As I read through this thread, I'm crying. Later

Edgy MD Aug 09 2022 01:53 PM Re: RIP Vin Scully, 1927-2022

Vin circa 1990, talking about, among other things, the problematic increases in the lengths of games. [YOUTUBE]BgA94gLUVaQ[/YOUTUBE]