Vin Scully, the voice of the Dodgers from their final years in Brooklyn through their first 58 in Los Angeles, died Tuesday at age 94.
Born just six years after sports broadcasting began, Scully over the course of his career became arguably the most beloved voice in the history of the field. His 67 years with the Dodgers made him an institution in Los Angeles and his national work with CBS and NBC brought him nationwide renown.
For NBC, he called some of the indelible moments in baseball history — Bill Buckner’s error in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series and Kirk Gibson’s walk-off in Game 1 of the Fall Classic two years later. In total, he was the lead voice of ten World Series on national television or radio, the last coming with CBS Radio in 1997.
Perhaps his most memorable call came years earlier on local radio the night Hank Aaron set the all-time home run record against the Dodgers in 1974.
Though best known for baseball, Scully called NFL games during his tenure with CBS from 1975-82, including the NFC Championship Game in 1976, 1978 and 1982 — the latter of those three featuring the famous Dwight Clark “Catch.”
Yet for all of his national success, his career was defined by his work with the Dodgers. When he retired in 2016, Scully had called more-than-half of the Dodgers’ total 133 seasons. Even now, his 67 season run represents 48 percent of team history — no small feat for a franchise that dates back to the Chester A. Arthur administration.
In an industry where play-by-play voices can work into their late 70s, Scully was calling games into his late 80s — returning to the booth year after year even after an initial retirement announcement in 2009. Even into the final years of his career, he found himself having to turn down overtures to do more national work, with Fox pursuing him on multiple occasions for a guest role on its World Series broadcasts.
Beyond the simple fact of his longevity, Scully was loved for his particular understated style, serving as much as a storyteller as a play-by-play voice. He continued in that role in recent months, spinning the occasional tale on his social media feed and voicing the open for the first NBC Sports-produced Major League Baseball game since 2000 back in May.
Scully did have the occasional critic. In 1976, former Dodger Mike Marshall ripped him on the record for being critical of his play, going so far as to call him an expletive. More recently, there was some tumult over Scully criticizing national anthem protests in the NFL. Nonetheless, in an industry replete with harsh criticism, it would be hard to find any other sports broadcaster who faced less over the course of his career.
Scully’s death comes within 48 hours of the loss of another historic sports figure, Celtics great Bill Russell — whose 11 NBA titles and civil rights impact made him one of the most significant athletes of all-time. Scully and Russell never worked together, but overlapped at CBS Sports in the 1970s and 1980s.
In tribute to Scully, ESPN2 was scheduled to re-air his NBC call of Game 1 of the 1988 World Series — featuring the aforementioned Gibson walk-off — at 8 PM ET Wednesday night.
