A Preliminary Evaluation
Word-for-word transcription of Scully's call of the eighth and ninth innings of Sandy Koufax's no-hitter on September 9, 1965
“Sandy with 8 strikeouts, looks in to get his sign. Santo has fouled out and flied to left, swings and fouls it back and the count one-one. There’s been one hit in the game and that was that little dunker off the end of the bat of Lou Johnson that went for the double. The only run of the game scored by the Dodgers in the fifth on a walk, a sacrifice, a stolen base on a throwing error, so it has been some kind of a game tonight. Here’s the 1-1 pitch to Santo. Fast ball, swung on and missed, strike two. One-and-two. Ernie Banks on deck, Santo back up to the plate. Koufax looks in to Torborg to get his sign, 1-2 pitch on the way, curveball got him, strike three.
Alright, Sandy Koufax needs five more outs as Ernie Banks steps in at the plate, Koufax into his wind up and delivers, curveball fouled away, O-and-1. The Dodgers: one run, one hit. The Cubs: no runs no hits. The Cubs: one error. Banks has struck out twice, Koufax has struck out nine. He’s retired 22 in a row. Sandy ready and his strike one pitch to Banks, fastball fouled back, strike 2. O and-2 the count to Banks. Koufax gives the resin bag a squeeze, toes the rubber, looks in to get his sign from Jeff Torborg. Sandy bends at the waist, now into his windup and a strike two pitch, curveball got him swinging. Ten strikeouts for Sandy Koufax. I tell ya what, strikeouts tonight are small potatoes. The batter is Byron Brown, lined out to center and grounded sharply to short. The young left fielder has hit the ball hard both times. Koufax ready and delivers, curveball swung on and a miss, strike one. John Kennedy is playing up about even with the bag at third, the outfield is straightaway. Boy the defensive alignment now becomes so important. Kennedy now backs up a step. Brown waiting, O and-one the count, Koufax ready and delivers, fastball high, one-and-one. ‘Bout time, and to me the only time tonight where Koufax shows he forced himself was on that pitch. He was trying to get a little something extra on it. He wanted O and-2 and that’s the first time I’ve seen him force himself tonight. One-and-one the count to Byron Brown. Sandy back one-one fast ball swung on, and missed, strike two. Oh Doctor, this is all we needed for the national pennant race. Koufax standing back at the rubber, tugging at the bill of his cap, holds in his belt, pushes up his sleeve, goes to the resin bag and normally he is not a fidgeter out there. Now he toes the rubber, Byron Brown waiting one-and-two the count. Koufax into his windup, one-and-two pitch, curveball got him swinging. Sandy Koufax gets a standing ovation, he has struck out 11, he has retired 24 consecutive batters. In other words, he has pitched an eight inning perfect game. He’s got three more outs to go. It’s one-nothing Dodgers.
Alright, bottom of the eighth inning, the Dodgers One and the Cubs nothing. Jim Lefebvre, the batter, Wes Parker and Jeff Torborg. If you’re listening and you have a neighbor who’s a red-hot baseball fan, it’d be a good idea to give him a ring, just to make sure he’s at the other end of this thing tonight. The pitch to Torborg, inside, ball one. One ball and no strikes to Jim Lefebvre. It’s been an unbelievable night. For six innings it was one in a million. On the rubber, into his windup on the one-oh pitch to Lefebvre, one-and-one. In case you weren’t with us, through six innings, Bob Hendley had a no-hitter, and Koufax a perfect game. Hendley is trailing, however, one-to-nothing. The Dodgers got a run on a walk, a sacrifice, a stolen base and a throwing error. The only run of the game. One-one pitch to Lefebvre inside, ball two, two-and-one. The only Dodger hit, and on a night like this you almost couldn’t dignify it as a hit, just a blooper into right field. That’s the only hit in the game, meanwhile, Koufax has retired 24 consecutive batters. The perfect game. And he’s struck out 11, he needs three more outs. Here’s the 2-1 pitch to Lefebvre, breaking ball swung on and missed, strike two. Bob Hendley looks in to get his sign. Into his windup with the two-two pitch on the way, fastball low, ball 3. If you are not keeping score, and I guess you wouldn’t be human if you weren’t looking ahead, if you’re not keeping score, the Cubs are due to send up Chris Krug, the catcher, Don Kessinger, the shortstop, and Bob Hendley the pitcher. Here’s the three-two pitch to Lefebvre. Swung on, and missed, strike three, and what a game Hendley is pitching tonight. The batter will be Wes Parker. Now we’ll give you a few names of fellows who could possibly come up as pinch hitters for the Cubs. Down in the dugout, Harvey Kuenn, who is certainly no newcomer to dramatic situations, Harvey Kuenn is in the dugout, to name one. Fastball to Parker’s low, ball one. A fellow who has beaten the Dodgers twice this year with the bat, is liable to get a call as a pinch hitter, Joe Amalfitano. There is tremendous speed in Ellis Burton, so if he nubs the ball he’ll be tough to get. Then there’s left hand hitting catcher, Ed Bailey. Infielder, outfielder Jimmy Stewart, they’re just a couple. Alright, the one-O pitch to Parker, swung on, hit to the left of the mound, Hendley gloves it, whirls, fires to Banks, he spears it for the out. A fine play by Ernie as Hendley almost threw it away. Two out and here’s a kid who’s at the other end of a perfect eight innings, so he’s got to be doing a pretty good job behind the plate, Mr. Jeff Torborg. Torborg as a batter has grounded to third and flied to center, O for two.
The Union Oil Company of California delighted to send it all to you. Delighted to send you every heart-throbbing moment of a great National League pennant race, and boy we have really come to the zenith tonight.
Torborg fouls it away O and-one. Two down, bottom of the eighth, one to nothing Dodgers. But the ninth inning is the most important three outs for Koufax, well perhaps in these three years for sure. Oh-and-one to Torborg. Hendley on the rubber, Bob into his windup and the strike one pitch. Breaking ball hit to deep left field, way back goes Byron Brown to the bullpen gate and makes the catch for the out. Jeff came within a foot of hitting it into the bullpen. It’s just a long out to left field. And so through 8 innings the Dodgers One the Cubs nothing. And Sandy Koufax is slowly walking out to the mound, and not to get corny about it, but he’s walking out to the mound for a meeting with destiny. There he goes.
Three times in his sensational career has Sandy Koufax walked out to the mound to pitch a fateful ninth where he turned in a no-hitter. But tonight, September the ninth, nineteen hundred and sixty-five, he made the toughest walk of his career, I'm sure, because through eight innings he has pitched a perfect game. He has struck out eleven, he has retired twenty-four consecutive batters, and the first man he will look at is catcher Chris Krug, big right-hand hitter, flied to second, grounded to short. Dick Tracewski is now at second base and Koufax ready and delivers: curveball for a strike.
"Oh-and-one the count to Chris Krug. Out on deck to pinch-hit is one of the men we mentioned earlier as a possible, Joey Amalfitano. Here's the strike one pitch to Krug: fastball, swung on and missed, strike two. And you can almost taste the pressure now. Koufax lifted his cap, ran his fingers through his black hair, then pulled the cap back down, fussing at the bill. Krug must feel it too as he backs out, heaves a sigh, took off his helmet, put it back on and steps back up to the plate. Tracewski is over to his right to fill up the middle, (John) Kennedy is deep to guard the line. The strike two pitch on the way: fastball, outside, ball one. Krug started to go after it and held up and Torborg held the ball high in the air trying to convince Vargo [the umpire] but Eddie said no sir. One and two the count to Chris Krug. It is 9:41 p.m. on September the ninth. The one-two pitch on the way: curveball, tapped foul off to the left of the plate.
The Dodgers defensively in this spine-tingling moment: Sandy Koufax and Jeff Torborg. The boys who will try and stop anything hit their way: Wes Parker, Dick Tracewski, Maury Wills and John Kennedy; the outfield of Lou Johnson, Willie Davis and Ron Fairly. And there's twenty-nine thousand people in the ballpark and a million butterflies. Twenty nine thousand, one hundred and thirty-nine paid.
Koufax into his windup and the one-two pitch: fastball, fouled back out of play. In the Dodger dugout Al Ferrara gets up and walks down near the runway, and it begins to get tough to be a teammate and sit in the dugout and have to watch. Sandy back of the rubber, now toes it. All the boys in the bullpen straining to get a better look as they look through the wire fence in left field. One and two the count to Chris Krug. Koufax, feet together, now to his windup and the one-two pitch: fastball outside, ball two. (Crowd booing on the tape.)
A lot of people in the ballpark now are starting to see the pitches with their hearts. The pitch was outside, Torborg tried to pull it over the plate but Vargo, an experienced umpire, wouldn't go for it. Two and two the count to Chris Krug. Sandy reading signs, into his windup, two-two pitch: fastball, got him swinging.
Sandy Koufax has struck out twelve. He is two outs away from a perfect game.
Here is Joe Amalfitano to pinch-hit for Don Kessinger. Amalfitano is from Southern California, from San Pedro. He was an original bonus boy with the Giants. Joey's been around, and as we mentioned earlier, he has helped to beat the Dodgers twice, and on deck is Harvey Kuenn. Kennedy is tight to the bag at third, the fastball, a strike. "O" and one with one out in the ninth inning, one to nothing, Dodgers. Sandy reading, into his windup and the strike one pitch: curveball, tapped foul, "O" and two. And Amalfitano walks away and shakes himself a little bit, and swings the bat. And Koufax with a new ball, takes a hitch at his belt and walks behind the mound.
I would think that the mound at Dodger Stadium right now is the loneliest place in the world. Sandy fussing, looks in to get his sign, "O" and two to Amalfitano. The strike two pitch to Joe: fastball, swung on and missed, strike three. He is one out away from the promised land, and Harvey Kuenn is comin' up.
So Harvey Kuenn is batting for Bob Hendley. The time on the scoreboard is 9:44. The date, September the ninth, nineteen-sixty-five, and Koufax working on veteran Harvey Kuenn. Sandy into his windup and the pitch, a fastball for a strike. He has struck out, by the way, five consecutive batters, and that's gone unnoticed. Sandy ready and the strike one pitch: very high, and he lost his hat. He really forced that one. That's only the second time tonight where I have had the feeling that Sandy threw instead of pitched, trying to get that little extra, and that time he tried so hard his hat fell off — he took an extremely long stride to the plate — and Torborg had to go up to get it.
One and one to Harvey Kuenn. Now he's ready: fastball, high, ball two. You can't blame a man for pushing just a little bit now. Sandy backs off, mops his forehead, runs his left index finger along his forehead, dries it off on his left pants leg. All the while Kuenn just waiting. Now Sandy looks in. Into his windup and the two-one pitch to Kuenn: swung on and missed, strike two. It is 9:46 p.m.
Two and two to Harvey Kuenn, one strike away. Sandy into his windup, here's the pitch:
Swung on and missed, a perfect game!
(Crowd cheering for 38 seconds)
On the scoreboard in right field it is 9:46 p.m. in the City of the Angels, Los Angeles, California. And a crowd of twenty-nine thousand one-hundred thirty nine just sitting in to see the only pitcher in baseball history to hurl four no-hit, no-run games. He has done it four straight years, and now he caps it: On his fourth no-hitter he made it a perfect game. And Sandy Koufax, whose name will always remind you of strikeouts, did it with a flourish. He struck out the last six consecutive batters. So when he wrote his name in capital letters in the record books, that "K" stands out even more than the O-U-F-A-X.
Scully uses countless methods, techniques, devices, elements. He uses no formula. No one has ever rivaled Scully. His success is original. However, even in a half inning of work, the last of the ninth in Koufax,’ perfect game we can find examples of most of all the key points.
He sets up the plot device of “ascension.” Koufax has previously pitched three no-hitters, but this would be his first perfect game. He emphasizes the moment by emphasizing the precise time in history, September the ninth, nineteen hundred and sixty-five (not just nineteen sixty-five).
Scully makes a qualitative judgment—“the toughest walk of his career.” He adds the telling factual detail—“twenty-four consecutive batters” have made out. By telling the audience that Krug is a big catcher we anticipate that he is slow, but with some power. Scully has earlier gotten his listeners to think along with him about baseball strategy, and, sure enough, Joey Amalfitano will pinch-hit. We can “see” him “out on deck”. Scully adds these varied details without ever missing the call of a pitch. He has carefully developed a pattern of phrasing that allows him to interrupt himself seamlessly to call the play action. He is inventive and metaphoric: “you can almost taste the pressure now.” He adds the physical detail that triggers a full picture of Sandy Koufax: “Koufax lifted his cap, ran his fingers through his black hair,” more physical description than Scully usually gives, heightening the moment. He makes a great use of the gerund, “fussing,” that suggests action, nervousness, pressure. Scully speculates, “Krug must feel it too.” Details about the second and third baseman suggest strategy. That Kennedy is “deep to guard the line” might remind the careful listener that it is a 1-0 game so Kennedy is guarding the line more to prevent a double that would put a runner in scoring position, than to protect the perfect game. Scully, one of the few announcers to consistently include the names of the umpires in his broadcasts suggest the simple honestly of Vargo who will not be influenced in his call by the Dodger catcher, Jeff Torborg.
Scully’s rare adjective, “spine-tingling,” emphasizes the excitement. He details the defense trying to preserve the perfect game. Like no other broadcaster can do, he connects the fact, the metaphor, the moment in a single phrase. Fact: 29,000 fans. Metaphor: a million butterflies. Inventive. Brilliant.
Scully sees the event in the context of relationships. “It begins to get tough to be a teammate.” Another aptly chosen gerund—“straining.” A physical details that triggers a full picture—“as they look through the wire fence.”
The presence of mind to make a very timely qualitative observation: “a lot of people in the ballpark now are starting to see the pitches with their hearts.” If Koufax is to get his perfect game, Scully implicitly expects it to be justly so. Scully does not fault Torborg for trying to fool the umpire, but Scully is assured that the “experienced” umpire will do his job impartially, a critical requirement for judges in a civil society.
The strikeouts pile up—twelve, but they are in service of a win, of a perfect game: “two outs away.” Amalfitano is local. He probably has friends or family in the stands. He has also “helped to beat the Dodgers twice.” This heightens the tension, makes it a larger story should Amalfitano ruin the perfect game. The perfect physical description: Amalfitano “shakes himself a little bit.” The perfect juxtaposition: Koufax “takes a hitch at his belt.” The bull fighter and the bull. The pause before the renewal of the confrontation.
Scully sees the moment as the focus of all contexts: “the mound is the loneliest place in the world.” Brilliant.
The perfect allusion: “the promised land.”
It is now 9:44. The clock ticks like the bomb that 007 must defuse before the world is obliterated. Uh oh, Kuenn is a “veteran.” The careful and qualitative observation and evaluation—Koufax lost his hat, “He really forced that one.” He elaborated, it was the second time, the long stride, “he tried so hard,” and then the rare observation more about life than merely baseball, “you can’t blame a man for pushing just a little bit now.”
Now the focus is on the bullfighter. Koufax backs off, mops, runs his finger, dries it while Kuenn is “just waiting.”
Emphasis, anticipation: “one strike away.”
Scully’s voice: “Swung on and missed, a perfect game.” Scully—flow experience. The broadcast itself—a flow achievement. For those who were listening—a flow experience. Scully lets the crowd cheer sustain the energy of the event.
When he comes back on the air he seems to be putting the feat in Roman numerals. He sets the perfect game in the context of baseball history—the only person to pitch four no-hitters, and elaborates that this one is the first that was a perfect game. He, then, puts the emphasis back on the man himself who has accomplished this record by calling attention to the fact that “he struck out the last six batters” to finish the game, thus the “K” stands out even more than the O-U-F-A-X.”
As others have noted: two perfect games the two most revered names in Los Angeles Dodgers history, Sandy Koufax and Vin Scully.
Vin Scully has been widely admired and praised as a broadcaster. The 2001 Current Biography Yearbook with its biography of Scully written by “K.S.” sums up much of the high regard:
“According to Gary Kaufman, ‘Vin Scully has the most musical voice in baseball…But even though he will occasionally toss off some verse (he’s likely to find the lyrics of an old show tune more apt) or call a cheap base hit ‘a humble thing, but thine own,’ the real metaphor for Vin Scully isn’t poetry, or even music: It’s painting. Other radio announcers can tell you what’s happening on the field, and you can imagine it. With Vin Scully, you can see it. His command of the language and the game is so masterful that he always has just the right words to describe what’s going on.” Kaufman quoted the celebrated sportscaster Dick Enberg as saying about Scully, ‘At times I’ll be listening to him and I’ll think, Oh, I wish I could call upon that expression the way he does. He paints the picture more beautifully than anyone who’s ever called a baseball game.’”
The argument of this book is that the preferable metaphor for Scully is that of artist, rather than simply painter. Scully utilizes every canon, rubric, standard from Speech, Composition, Story Telling, Rhetoric, Criticism, Aesthetics. This Chapter establishes the efficient and effective ways in which Scully earns a superior evaluation. The ninth and tenth chapters will argue that Scully eclipses even these standards, but certainly that greater success is built on the depth and breadth of his technical success.
The standards for this preliminary evaluation are suggested to by the classic English 101 text by Thrall and Hibbard, A Handbook to Literature. (pgs 127, 128). These are the standards by which “to judge works by clearly defined standards of evaluation” and provide analysis “which attempts to get at the nature of the work as an object in itself.”
Starting with the traditional Canons of Rhetoric. The five “canons” include: invention; arrangement; style; memory; and delivery. Historically they have served as rhetorical standards of speech and they certainly apply to broadcasting. The Brigham Young University web site offers a nice summary of these canons, that can be used to make the points about Scully. They say, “invention concerns finding something to say…topics of invention…include, for example, cause and effect, comparison, and various relationships.” The evidence of Chapters Four, Five, and Six particularly provide mounds of evidence that Scully is a master of invention. He finds the detail in a player’s biography, the historical anecdote, the detail in an early inning that is leading to a final game result, the comparison between two players or situations that makes his point stand out, and the inter-relationship of all aspects of the game. Scully earns the ‘A’ for invention.
Arrangement is about how speech, or in this case a broadcast, is ordered. Although arrangement was at least originally more concerned about the logic of an argument, the idea of order remains relevant to an understanding of any speech, and by application any broadcast. As evidenced by the three separate Scully Introductions to a Dodger Padre game contained at the beginning of my The Introduction section, Scully’s introductions deserve admiration. His conclusions are consistently apt for the broadcast he has just finished. Scully will be remembered for the conclusions to the great games like the Gibson walk off home run and the Koufax perfect game, but the brevity of his conclusion to the 2006 was equally as astute in its economy of expression and for getting it just right. The last month of the 2006 season had been exhilarating. On the last day of the season the Dodgers qualified for the playoffs, facing the New York Mets. After only three games, in which the Dodgers lost all three, the season was over. Scully: “So that’ll do it. I mean all of a sudden the year is finished, done, kaput, a memory.” It was the right conclusion for this game, this season. The artistry was perfect.
Style concerns itself with how artistically ideas are presented. Style also presumes that language is adapted to its audience and context for maximum effect. Scully broadcasts baseball games, not operas. He knows that baseball can be viewed as “a child’s game.” Concerns of style include: grammar, audience, decorum, figurative speech. As suggested by the Bob Klein comments on Scully in Chapter Two, Bob has been waiting fifty years for Scully to make a mistake in grammar. By talking directly to his audience, instead of a broadcast partner, as is the usual broadcasting set-up, Scully has exceptional rapport with his baseball audience. His probity and decorum are such that I will question whether it is a limitation in the next chapter, Chapter Nine. The longest chapter in the book is Chapter Six because he has such great success in his metaphorical speech.
Memory “alludes to the practice of storing up commonplaces or other material arrived at through the topics of invention for use as called for in a given occasion.” The BYU web site also says that, “Memory is…tied to the improvisational necessities of a speaker.” Perhaps “memory” is why Scully’s greatest accomplishments are as the Dodger announcer. Outside of Dodger baseball, Scully is a brilliant announcer. Announcing Dodger baseball games Scully seems to have almost infinite knowledge. He can and does call upon anecdote and incident from his sixty years with the Dodgers (and even though he grew up a Mel Ott, New York Giant, fan, his Dodger knowledge goes well back into his youth, not just his professional career). Scully remembers that Bill Singer had once said on a post-game interview show that he would eventually pitch a no-hitter. Scully remembers the “daffy” days of Babe Herman and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Scully remembers the earlier Cinderella team, The New York Mets, in comparing them with the 1988 Dodgers. Scully is an encyclopedia of knowledge about the Dodgers and baseball history, and it serves him incredibly well according to “improvisational necessity.”
Scully’s delivery is impeccable. Delivery is about how well something is said. Historically voice training was included in instruction on delivery. Kathleen Turner, the Academy Award winning actress, reported that she had felt the work she had done with her voice was far more important than the work she had done in the gym. Scully is widely recognized for his mellifluous voice. He has also developed an amazing cadence that allows him to work seamlessly between calling the action on the baseball field and adding the details that give that action such rich texture. His inherent enthusiasm, joy, and genuineness have been unflagging. By the standards of the five canons of rhetoric, Scully is par excellence.
But it does not stop there. Chapters Six and Seven evince that Scully is equally strong at the traditional elements of both composition and story telling. Especially Chapter Six emphasizes his mastery of virtually all literary and rhetorical devices. The Bible for decades in English composition is the small book by Strunk and White, Elements of Style. Scully has mastered their list of good advice: 1. Place yourself in the background; 2) …in a way that comes naturally…using words and phrases that come readily to hand; 3)…with nouns and verbs; 4) Do not overstate; 5) Avoid the use of qualifiers (rather, very, little, pretty); 6) Do not affect a breezy manner; 7) Do not explain too much; 8) Avoid fancy words; 9) Do not use dialect unless your ear is good; 10) Be clear; 11) Prefer the standard to the offbeat. The only two suggestions that Scully does not necessarily follow, and remember that Strunk and White were discussing composition not broadcasting, are “do not inject opinion” and “use figures of speech sparingly.” In fact I would argue that Scully almost never injects opinion, although at propitious times he will offer a thoughtful evaluation of what he has seen. And despite the greatness of his figures of speech, they are in fact used in juxtaposition to the factual material of the statistics and biographical information that he also uses.
Scully even fares exceedingly well from the perspectives of the various historical schools of criticism. Impressionistic criticism emphasizes a work’s effect on its audience, and listening to Scully has been an often transcendent experience for his audience. Historical and Formal criticism, particularly Genre criticism, would offer the opportunity to acknowledge that Scully is in the “objective” broadcast tradition, that Scully followed in the steps of his mentor, Red Barber, and eclipsed that high standard of success. Analytical criticism suggests the type of criticism emphasized in this chapter, that as measured by the classical standards and canons of rhetoric and style, Scully has reached the highest levels of success. Moral criticism is the most problematic for modern critics, and will be discussed at length in Chapter Nine which will argue that his implicitly moral world view enhances, not diminishes, the clarity of his vision. In terms of Mythic criticism Chapter Seven shows that Scully uses the archetypal patterns of literature to great effect. Scully’s work is more than the sum of the parts, that there is overall unity in all aspects of his work, that it is balanced. Chapter Ten argues that his success in all these areas is only suggestive of his level of success as an artist, and that he is not merely describing the action that he sees, but that he is at one with it, and that he is singularly able to capture the transcendent flow in himself, in his art, and often even for the audience.
In this work the straightforward intent is to suggest that there is strong evidence that Scully measures up exceedingly well on the classic standards for artistic success. Chapter Nine will consider the most problematic question about his work, and in Chapter Ten, the best case for recognizing his work as Art.