This is in Vin Scully’s own words from his 1993 Reader’s Digest article on Red Barber, telling his own story of wanting to become a broadcaster since his youth:
I first heard Red Barber when I was a kid in New York City. My family had one of those four-legged radio monsters that sat so high off the floor I could actually crawl under it. I’d lie there for hours with a box of saltines and a carton of milk, mesmerized by the play-by-play. In school, when asked what we wanted to be when we grew up, most everybody else said doctor, nurse or lawyer. I wanted to be a sportscaster.
He also added this for InsideBaseball.net about his enthusiasm for broadcasting and the game of baseball:
“Well, (about his enthusiasm) it’s natural. I love this game. I tried to play it. I didn’t play it very well all through high school and college. I knew I couldn’t play it professionally. I admire what they do. Their skills. I know how difficult it is, even for them. And, as I told you earlier, I think it is the best game ever devised. So it’s very easy to love it.”
Scully’s Career Biography
He was born Vincent Edward Scully on November 29, 1927. His parents were Irish immigrants. He was born in the borough of the Bronx in New York City. His father, also Vincent, but Vincent Aloysius, died before Vin turned five. He had been a silk salesman. His mother, Bridget Freeman Scully, later remarried Allan Reeve and the family moved to Manhattan. He had a half sister, Margaret Anne Reeve.
Scully has said that in his youth he played stickball, and that his favorite baseball player was Giants player, Mel Ott. He attended Catholic schools. For as long as he could remember he was fascinated by broadcasting, so much so that when he was about eight years old he wrote a school essay describing a baseball game. At the Jesuit Boys’ high school, Fordham Prep, he played on the baseball team as a left-handed outfielder. He was the sports editor for the school paper and on the debate team. He finished high school in 1944 and joined the United States Navy. In 1945 he enrolled at Fordham University. He played baseball, wrote for the school newspaper, worked for the school radio station covering sports, and sang in a barbershop quartet. He received his bachelor’s degree in 1949.
His first job was part time with WTOP-AM in Washington D.C., but he soon thereafter was hired by the Dodgers in 1950 to work with announcer, Red Barber, whom Scully found to be an admirable mentor, teacher, and even father figure. Scully accompanied the Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1958. He married Joan Crawford in 1958 and they had three children. She died in 1972. In 1973 Scully married Sandra Hunt, who had two children from a previous marriage, and then Scully and Hunt had a child together.
He has called such famous moments as the Johnny Podres shutout of the New York Yankees in 1955 when the Dodgers finally won their first World Series, three of the seventeen perfect games in major league baseball history, the New York Yankee Don Larsen perfect game against the Dodgers in the 1956 World Series, the Sandy Koufax perfect game in 1965 against the Chicago Cubs, and the Montreal Expos Dennis Martinez perfect game against the Dodgers in 1991. He broadcast Los Angeles Dodger Don Drysdale’s record setting streak of 58 consecutive scoreless innings in 1968, and then Dodger Orel Hershiser surpassing that record in 1988. He called the improbable ninth inning of the first game of the 1988 World Series when Dodger Kirk Gibson hit a walk off home run against the Oakland A’s Dennis Eckersley. He has been broadcasting for sixty years.
Scully was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982. He was recipient of an Emmy Award for Life Achievement in 1995, elected to the Radio Hall of Fame in 1995, and was chosen Broadcaster of the Century by the American Sportscasters in 2000.
Besides his broadcasting work with the Dodgers, Scully did play by play for the National Football League and the PGA for CBS Television from 1975-1982; Major League Baseball for NBC Television from 1983-1989; and the World Series for CBS Radio from 1990-1997.
His many honors include having “Vin Scully Way” named after him in Vero Beach, and “Vin Scully Press Box” at Dodger Stadium.
Remembering that except for national radio and television Scully worked alone in the booth, his partners sharing innings, or alternating with radio and Dodger television included Red Barber (1939-1953); Connie Desmond (1943-1956); Al Helfer (1956-1957); Andre Baruch (1954-1955); Jerry Doggett (1956-1987); Ross Porter (1977-2004); Don Drysdale ((1988-1993); Rick Monday (1993-present); Charlie Steiner (2005-present); Steve Lyons (2005-present).
With regard to his impact as a Dodger announcer, former Dodger General Manager Buzzi Bavasi said, “Vin Scully taught people in Los Angeles about baseball. He was one of those rated as vitally important in making the Dodgers as popular as they are today.”
“Flow State”
Those are, perhaps, the basic “facts” of his career. This barebones “career biography” respects Mr. Scully’s well-known preference for personal privacy, and emphasizes that this book’s concern is about his work.
Perspectives from authors Tim Gallwey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi were instrumental to the early development of this book. The discovery that Gallwey was now also quoting Csikszentmihalyi, completed a basic understanding about the nature of Scully’s work. Gallwey, discussing the “flow state” identified by Csikszentmihalyi says, “In the flow state, action follows upon action according to an internal logic that seems to need no conscious intervention by the actor. He experiences it as a unified flowing from one moment to the next, in which he is in control of his actions, and in which there is little distinction between self and environment, between past, present, and future…(Csikszentmihalyi) goes on to say that the experience of this flow state is so inherently enjoyable that it is often sought for itself rather than any extrinsic rewards that may result from it…Yet my experience of…(people who have experienced the ‘flow state’ of relaxed concentration) is that they are often surprised and humbled by the achievements they attain in this state, giving less credit to themselves than to something that is at least a step beyond their control. They usually shy away from trying to teach the attainment of this state, knowing intuitively that no words or formulas can promise to take student or teacher through the door to this valued experience…It is my interpretation utmost sincerity is the subjective self continually choosing to stay engaged in chaotic situations in a manner that leads to individuation to higher levels of consciousness.”
Gallwey’s observations fully explain all that is needed to know about Vin Scully as the creator of his own Art and Legacy. Vin Scully told L.A. Dodger writer, Bill Plaschke, “I know myself to be a very ordinary man, really I do.” Contending that Scully is a person of “flow experience” he can taken at his word. Scully does not need credit for his higher level of consciousness. After over fifty years behind the microphone virtually no doubts exist about his “utmost sincerity.” Read these lines (and hear Scully’s voice):
“High fastball that’s lifted down the right field line, in the corner and lands at the base of the right field wall, one run will score, here comes the throw on that runner, here comes another runner, and LoDuca is going to tag both of them out, and the Dodgers have become the Brooklyn Dodgers of old, getting two men tagged out at the plate…and LoDuca has a play for his own memory book he will never forget that…well, it was the old story about Babe Herman in Brooklyn who supposedly tripled into a double play…well Russell Martin has just doubled into a double play and we turn back the clock to the daffy days of the Brooklyn Dodgers.”
At nearly eighty years of age, this is an artist still in the flow experience. This is a man in control of his actions, but in which there is little distinction between self and environment, between past, present, and future. This is the work of a man who passed up more lucrative broadcasting opportunities to continue broadcasting Dodger baseball games. This is the work of a man who so still enjoys what he does that he continues to say that he has no thoughts of retirement as long as his health remains good, although he is almost eighty years young. This is the work of a man who has avoided discussing his work, not because he is not fully prepared and committed, but because he is surprised and humbled by his achievements, and cannot be expected to account for this mysterious flow state. Thus the two key points to take from this chapter: at a very early age Vin Scully knew he wanted to be a broadcaster; and Vin Scully consistently reaches the flow state.
Scully’s Impact.
Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden has said about Scully, “Vin is absolutely, unquestionably the greatest sports announcer of all time. I’ve listened to him for years. He’s remarkable. He can do any sport, no one’s close.” Wooden and Scully are both extremely well respected both for their career success and dignity. Besides his sterling reputation Scully’s impact shows up in other ways. The Press Box at Dodger Stadium is now named for Scully. The X-Files character Dana Scully, was named after Vin by Dodger fan, writer-producer Chris Carter. Steve Rushin enthuses that Scully “single-throatedly sold more radios than Philco” because so many Dodger fans, especially in the Dodgers’ first decades in Los Angeles, bought and brought so many transistor radios to the game to listen to Vin even as they watched at the stadium.
Legendary sports writer Jim Murray, of the Los Angeles Times wrote that, “It’s impossible to over-estimate Scully’s value to the Dodgers.” Murray also wrote, “It’s not possible to overstate what Scully meant to the franchise shift to L.A. Here was this team, in the mold of carpetbaggers, pulling into a strange town 3,000 miles from their home base and trying to blend in. Scully midwifed this delicate process. Some front office colleagues took the typically New York attitude that they were slumming among the uninitiated, rubes who knew nothing of the game of baseball. Scully tactfully took to going to as many luncheons as they could schedule. He put the right smiling face on the community’s new neighbors and representatives. He took the we out of broadcasting but put the our in community relations.” Murray considered him the “Most Valuable Dodger.” In 1976 there was a poll of fans to vote for the greatest Los Angeles Dodger. Sandy Koufax lost to Vin Scully – and Scully wasn’t on the ballot. He won as a write-in candidate.
Perhaps the most significant, qualitative impact of Scully has been his influence on individual fans. Seemingly most adults over the age of fifty in southern California have and tell a Scully story. (As I was writing this chapter, Bill Brisick, a publisher representative, asked me if I was writing anything. I tested my hypothesis—I asked him if he had a Scully story. He well remembered being at Dodger Stadium the next Dodger-Giant home game after the notorious game when Giant Juan Marichal hit Dodger John Roseboro with a bat. Bill says that Scully said over the air “blessed are the peace makers” and the crowd, listening to him on their radios, cheered.)
Steve Rushin, of Sports Illustrated, repeats a Scully story, “In one early game at the Los Angeles Coliseum…(Scully) mentioned on the air that umpire Frank Secory was celebrating his birthday that afternoon. Instantly, the crowd yelled, as one, Happy Birthday, Frank, and Secory blinked back at them in bewilderment.”
(There are two stories that I have often told from memory, and I may have changed the details slightly over the years. I remember Scully telling about wondering about a fan who was a regular at Cubs game in Chicago, who always sat in the back row and pounded on a bass drum. Then one day Scully found himself on the same elevator with this fan and couldn’t resist asking the man what he did for a living. The man replied that he was a brain surgeon. I suspect that I have always remembered that story to help justify my own self-identity as an over educated, quirky, Dodger fan. The other story I tell frequently to my own students, encouraging them to cast their net widely in pursuing a career opportunity, and to be sure to reach high. I remember a variation of how Scully explains his getting the Dodger broadcasting job was that graduating from Fordham University, he applied for several jobs that he thought he could get, and the Dodger job on a lark, and that the only full time job he was offered was the Dodger job.)
Countless people have referred to Scully as God. Marketing guru Bob Klein says about Scully, “But for, what is it, half a century I’ve been engrossed in Vin Scully. Why? Because he ad libs in perfect grammatical English. All the time. When he tells an anecdote, it has the construction of a comedian’s perfect joke. So I sit there night after night mesmerized, just listening to the man’s sentence construction. Is that silly?” My editor, Paddy Calistro, tells of listening under the covers to Scully on her transistor radio, in the Bay Area. (I don’t know how she got the reception. While I was at Stanford I placed an ad in the Stanford Daily inquiring if anyone had figured out how to pick up Scully on the radio. Unfortunately the only responses I received was to be awakened several times in the middle of the night by my phone ringing, only to answer and be told “Giants rule!” So it gose. It was worth it, if only in failure, to try to find the Scully broadcasts.)
How great it has been that Scully works solo in the booth – talking to “me” instead of conversing with other announcers, as is the norm in major league broadcasts. Eventually Scully’s greatest impact is person to person. Steve Rushin suggests this when he says, “When I hear (Scully’s) voice, I think of summer evenings in the backyard with my dad.” For the long time listeners there has been something profoundly stabilizing and reassuring to have been listening to Scully for so many decades. A southern California baseball fan can scarcely imagine him not being on the air from April to October.
But the warm feelings aside, Rushin also recognizes that Scully does more than entertain. “Scully made these people see…Ray Charles, a long time listener, has said that Scully’s voice holds him rapt.” Rushin says Scully’s “broadcasts are a service of deft descriptions, apt allusions and joyful noises, seamlessly strung together like charms on a bracelet.” It is the teaching his audience “to see” that is his critical impact.
Other fine announcers make their audiences remember summer evenings in the backyard. Scully has taught his audience to see. This will be much more the topic of later chapters, but the emphasis here is that the “seeing” is about a lot more than just inside baseball. Scully narrates a child’s game, and in doing so also makes his audience want to be better, more intelligent, more civil people.
Scully has been a great connoisseur of baseball, and he has shared that deep appreciation with his audience. He has “found the language that help(s) others perceive the (game) more deeply.” He has been that “midwife to perception” so that others can “perceive more comprehensively”. He has re-educated perception. He has lifted “the veils that keep eyes from seeing.” He has translated his connoisseurship into criticism to re-educate perception. Impact. Legacy.
Historical changes in Scully’s delivery?
Has Scully changed over the years? As he approaches eighty years of age, he seems to make a few more mistakes, perhaps doesn’t note as quickly that a manager changed his mind and sent in a different pinch hitter than the one who had been in the batter’s box, forget to tell the listener what happened with the runner on first, when a batter knocks in a runner from second or third. Little things. His voice has deepened, but retained its “mellifluous” quality. He has an even deeper memory that adds depth and texture to his broadcasts. Two major differences are that he mostly does television now, whereas he originally did mostly radio, and when he did do television he’d apologize to the television viewer during his “simulcasts” for describing so much of the picture that the viewer could obviously see. Here is the ninth inning from his 1962 call of Sandy Koufax’ first no hitter, juxtaposed with a sample from his 2006 game in which four consecutive Dodgers hit home runs.
June 30, 1962, Vin Scully calling Sandy Koufax’ first no hitter.
“Alright, the ninth inning 5 to nothing Dodgers. And Koufax has finally come face to face with it. Koufax goes to the resin bag and gives it a squeeze. And here we go. Sandy pulls at the peak of his cap. Bends at his waist to read his signs, and goes to work. Into his windup, the pitch to Woodling, curveball for a strike. 5 runs, 11 hits, no errors for the Dodgers. No runs, no hits, no errors for the Mets, in the ninth. Ashburn stands up there at the plate waiting. You’ll hear a roar on every strike and a groan on every ball. Koufax, straddling the rubber. Christopher, a short lead at first, with Harkness directly back of him. Now Richie up at the plate, crowd very quiet. Now, Koufax on the rubber, the one two pitch to Ashburn, fastball, a groundball to Wills, he goes to Burright, they get one, to Harkness, not in time…Kanehl waiting at the plate, Koufax rubbing up the ball.
Sandy straddles the rubber, leans on his right knee, stares into Roseboro. Now he is set, Kanehl waiting, strike two pitch, curveball, a big bouncer to Gilliam, Jim has it. Goes to Burright, they get one, and that’s all. Two out in the ninth inning and Felix Mantilla, the batter. And listen to this crowd. So the entire ball game, Koufax, perhaps his biggest night maybe even more important to him than his eighteen strikeouts against the Giants, well it’s all on the line as Felix Mantilla is the batter. On deck, Frank Thomas. Rod Kanehl on first, two out in the ninth, 5-0 Dodgers. They’re all aware of what’s at stake at the moment, 2 and 1 to Mantilla.
The big gun for the New York Mets is on deck, Frank Thomas. I would imagine plate umpire, Mel Steiner, feels the tension and the responsibility. They are all well aware of what’s at stake at the moment. Koufax set, and the pitch, fastball, a big bouncer down to Wills, he has it, goes to Burright. No Hitter…(sound of the roaring crowd)
All of the Dodgers are out to mob Koufax halfway between third and home. Fairly with his arms around Sandy, pushing him toward the dugout, other Dodgers leaping over the knot of players to just touch him…Peter Reiser, is shaking his hand. Dwayne Anderson is out there to put that valuable left arm in a windbreaker, and a shower of blue pillows down on the field.
Sandy Koufax pitches a no hitter for the Dodgers. The first Dodger no hitter since Sal Maglie turned it in, in 1956, and the first Dodger left-hander to pitch a no hitter since way back in nineteen hundred and eight. And he is now walking toward home plate and the crowd giving him a standing ovation.”
Note the attention to suggestive physical details that will trigger images for any listener familiar with the basic baseball field of play. The squeeze of the resin bag, pulls the peak of his cap, bends at the waist, straddles the rubber, leans on his right knee, rubbing the ball, stares in. For those at all familiar with Sandy Koufax, these suggest images that make it very easy to visualize him on the mound. The score is one-sided, 5-0, so the most significant story that, Koufax is “face to face with,” is the chance to complete a no hitter. A feat probably even more important to Koufax than his previous, record-setting, performance in which he struck out eighteen batters. As has continued to do throughout his career, Scully goes to the crowd for his “reaction shots.” A roar on every strike, a groan on every ball. As he consistently does, he notes the importance of the umpire, and unlike most announcers, identifies the plate umpire by name, Mel Steiner. The game’s climax, “No hitter!” As he has also continued to do, he lets the crowd noise define the emotion of the event. The denouement emphasizes the significance of the achievement. The only surprise forty-five years later is that Scully did not indicate how likely, or close, the Dodgers were actually to getting the double play on the two ground out, force outs, which would have kept Koufax from having to face additional batters, who might ruin his no hitter.
The next example is from Scully’s television call, September, 18, 2006, the Dodgers and the Padres, the game in which the Dodgers ended up hitting four consecutive home runs in the ninth inning to tie the game.
"Nine to five, San Diego. As expected, Trevor Hoffman sat down, and John Atkins comes in... oh now (a sleeping infant in his fathers' arms is shown on TV), and wish you a very pleasant good evening. Sleeping the sleep of the good child. Nothing quite like it.
John Atkins, among other things, had the Tommy John surgery eight years ago but he's battled his way back. He was originally drafted by Oakland out of Oklahoma State. He lives in West Virginia, and he's 29 years old.
So nine-five San Diego, and the Dodgers are asked to do what they did, but they've run out of innings. Remember, they were down by four, came back to tie, and they're down by four again. (Atkins throws ball one to Kent... Scully continues.) Only now it's the ninth. Jeff Kent with two doubles and a single, three for four, rising to the occasion, seven for twelve in the series.
Because Scully has explained during his “simulcasts” of radio and television, when is audio feed is delivered simultaneously over both, that if he were only doing television that he would expect the picture on the screen to tell the visual story. (A personal interjection: I actually prefer the simulcasts and the narration he adds about that picture I can see…I like knowing what physical details capture his attention.) So, there is not the physical detail of the 1962 call. Rather, Scully over the years, doing more television and less radio, has increasingly added more biographical detail into his broadcasts about the players involved into his calls. For example, John Atkins had the Tommy John surgery, an operation that has saved countless pitching careers, and was originally performed by a Dodger team physician, Frank Jobe. Scully gives the score. Prophetically, he mentions that the Dodgers had previously been down by four runs and had rallied to tie. (But who would have believed it would happen again in that same game?) His statistics on Jeff Kent indicate that Kent is hot. While he may do less physical description, and more with player biography, he still has the same elegant voice, sense of common decency, he is accurate, fair, understands the game, is entertaining, informative, friendly, and down to earth. The consummate professional broadcaster, and more.