This is Scully’s opening to the ninth inning of what would become Don Drysdale’s fifth of six record setting consecutive shut out games, May 31, 1968.
“It’s the ninth inning at Dodger Stadium; it’s May 31st, nineteen hundred and sixty-eight, and a boy named Donald Scott Drysdale, born in Van Nuys, who had his ears blistered and his skin roasted many times from the boos he heard at the Coliseum, had received a standing ovation before 46, 000 as he goes to the mound to go after a record that has stood in the books for 63 years. He has four consecutive shutouts; he had 8 blanks tonight, that gives him 44 pearls on a string. He needs one more and he’s facing one of the toughest hitters he has ever faced, Willie McCovey to lead it off.”
Scully has great command of the English language. He uses the entire portfolio of rhetorical and literary stylistic techniques and devices. His arsenal includes such English teacher favorites as adage, allusion, analogy, anecdote, aphorism, diction, elaboration, emphasis, metaphor, simile, truism, didacticism, figure of speech, honesty, humor, hyperbole, joy, irony, imagery, metaphor, simile, turn of a phrase. These and more. From whatever list Scully has the full arsenal of literary means. One need not classify them to appreciate them. Some very favorite Scully moments include:
The Dodgers stole a number of bases against the San Diego Padres with the former Dodger, Mike Piazza, catching. Piazza has had career long problems throwing out runners. Nonetheless, Scully partially defended him that night: “you don’t just put the body at the catcher’s door step.” He was also saying that the Padre pitchers were not doing a good job of holding the runners on first base. What a great line by Scully.
If Scully defended Piazza in this instance, he still observed about Piazza’s foot speed:
“for Mike (Piazza), he’s running up hill as hard as he can and they still beat him.”
Other favorites include:
“He’s on the outside of the candy store looking in.”
“Whew, you talk about a rainbow curve, that had all but the pot of gold.”
“Sax hits a high drive into left field, down the line, gone. Home Run. Boy you talk about pulling the cork on a bottle of champagne, the first pitch of 1988 by Dave Dravecky and Steve Sax hits it in the left field seats.”
“A reminder of what happened to the Dodgers in the train wreck that was called the second inning.”
“You have to have a few knots on the tree to remember Willie Mays running out from under his cap.”
Scully’s expressive use of language is what he is best known for, but I think it particularly important to note that it is always founded on his more prosaic attention to statistics and biographical information.
Numbers are a very important part of a Scully broadcast.
The batter is the “second toughest in the league to strike out.”
“(His) strike out to walk ratio is better than four to one.”
“Right-handers hit only .212 against Rudy.”
"They have a “1-56 record when they trail after the end of the 7th.”
The next day he reports that they are, “1-57 when trailing after 7 innings.”
"Kenny “Lofton (is) hitting .347 in day time.”
“In case the thought crossed your mind, Vizcaino has allowed 7 home runs.”
“The 30th double play” (behind this pitcher, and Scully had been talking about this propensity all game).
The “Phillies, one game back.”
The team is “6-1 against left hand pitching.”
“Tied the major league record of 8-0.”
“There hasn’t been “two grand slams in one game in six years.”
The Dodgers are “trying to beat them 15 out of 19, no team has ever beaten the Rockies 15.”
“They’ve left seven men on base in the first three innings.”
“Drew hitting .333 against Ray King.”
The “Seventh time in Colorado history of 30 or more run combined (in a single game).”
“Stultz…the 16th pitcher of the game.”
About Dodger pitcher, Kuo: “when the opposition is in scoring position (hitting) .159.”
Kenny Lofton the “proud possessor of the only other hit.”
“Fastball clocked at 96.”
“What is a mountain for the Dodgers to climb, if you look at the teams in the playoffs, the Dodgers are a combined 8 and 30 against those teams in the playoffs.”
(Russell Martin) “has not bunted this year.”
Scully was one of the first announcers to make extensive use of statistics, the Dodgers having been the first team to employ a statistician, hiring Allan Roth in 1947. He provided Scully with interesting statistics until his departure from the Dodgers in 1964, perhaps the first person to update statistics during the actual game (e.g. batting averages as they changed within the game). Thus, Scully was undoubtedly one of first to develop their full use during a broadcast. Statistics have always been a vital part of a Scully broadcast, but not what sets him apart from other broadcasters who have followed his lead by frequently incorporating statistics into their calls.
Scully also provides plenty of descriptive details to get at both the strategy and results of the game he is broadcasting. He notes that, Dodger pitcher Gio Carrera, even though he is right handed is having “success getting left hand hitters out.” Scully queries about the advantages of a fast player on first trying to steal second with a left hand hitter at bat. By staying on first base, the first baseman has to hold him on, creating a bigger hole on the right side of the infield between the first and second basemen. If the runner steals, the first baseman can play off the bag, and is, thus, more likely to get to a ground ball to the right side. Scully asks, “Do you run him, or keep a hole on the right side open?” He does not indicate what he would do, just asks the listener to think along with the manager. He may confirm the obvious, “they aren’t holding the bag on (slow footed catcher Mike) Scioscia; he isn’t going anywhere.”
Will the pitcher throw a fastball, or a curve? The “off speed drops in nicely.” “(The) home run was off the fastball, the other night curve and screwball.” “Maybe he’s going to reverse it (the sequence of pitches)…see if he comes back slider…he does.” “He wasn’t looking for a fastball even though it was 3 and 2.” “Gave him a lot of breaking balls the first time…now gives him some heat…change-up got him this time.” And if that quits working, the manger can go to the bullpen, “turning him around to bat right handed.”
Scully looks ahead, and invites the listener to do so as well. A right hand pitcher with runners in scoring position and first base empty, might be tempted to walk a left handed batter, but Scully notes that “on deck, another left hand hitter,” so the Dodgers probably won’t walk batter, Todd Helton, intentionally. With runners on first and second and less than two outs, “Will he have his men going?” Or, will there be a hit and run play? Defensive alignment suggests strategy. Pete “Rose a normal depth at first,” indicates that he is not expecting a bunt.
Sometimes the player strategy is simply a feint, a “deke.” “Martin for all the world looked like he was taking off” (i.e. a good bluff that he was going to steal, which might make the pitcher rush a pitch, make an infielder move to cover second base). At other times the strategy isn’t about the ball in play. Scully observes that, the next batter walks “slowly up to the plate” to let pitcher who just batted get back to the dugout and rest before pitching the next half inning. And sometimes it isn’t even about trying to get an edge on the other team, it is about supporting team mates. “Darrell Thomas won’t get into the batter’s box until Yeager comes out and takes a bow.” In all such examples, Scully is not only describing the action, but, suggesting the thinking and strategy, the potential or actual results, always the fuller picture.
To flesh out the picture on the field Scully provides very specific, easily imagined, physical details or suggestions of action:
The pitcher, “rocks on the rubber.”
The hitter, “didn’t get around on it.”
(Koufax) “lifts his cap, runs his fingers through his hair.”
The batter is “scraping the dirt.”
“That gets away but Martin is on top of it.”
Einer Diaz is “way out in front of it.”
The count to the hitter is “2 and 2, so he’s wearing the count,” (#22, Toby Hall).
The pitcher “looks in to get a sign.”
“Hair askew, losing his helmet,” (the batter falls in the batter box).
The player is a “rock hard 200 (pounds).”
“Drew chases a pitch and down he goes.”
“Kenny’s spikes caught.”
“Helton with that short stroke.”
“Big man in motion.”
“Looking over his left shoulder, whirls, and throws over there.”
The pitcher, “just drops the ball on the mound and walks away.”
“Parker doing a little housekeeping there at first base.”
“Russell off the bag, Cabel holding.”
“Fernando…trying to rub a new wrinkle on the baseball.”
“Griffin, right foot on the rubber.”
“How much will the foul ball off the batter’s foot hurt?”
“And down he goes…at least it’s 70 degrees,” (so it would have hurt more if it the weather were colder).
On a short single, “everyone goes station to station.”
Dodger pitcher Kuo “works out a stretch all of the time.”
The shortstop “bare hand, throws, and gets him.”
The third baseman “comes in on the grass at third.”
With regard to defensive positioning, the “outfield fanned out straight away.”
The runner “head first diving back to the bag.”
“J.D. Drew gets a 40’ single.”
The batter, “plants the left foot.”
“Maddox, hands at his side.”
The pitcher, “working off the first base side of the rubber.”
The physical details are not only about the players per se:
The pitch “down and away.”
The strike, “inside corner at the knees.”
The “fastball, off the plate.”
The fast ball, “in at the knuckles.”
The pitch was a “room service fast ball.”
The fastball “jumped in on the hands.”
“Good fast ball with late action on it.”
“Just missed under the hands.”
“They had him set up.”
The pitch was “almost in the dirt.”
The ball was “at his chin.”
“The ball just cleared the wall.”
The batted ball “hits the wall 390’ away.”
“In this kind of game, even the gloves have come apart.”
The hitter “slices one that is just fair.”
The descriptions can include the fans, the stadium, the weather:
“A groan from the ball park.”
“56, 000 people on their feet cheering.”
The crowd gets into it, “so the chant, ‘J.D. Drew’…”
“They are moving the furniture around” in the bullpen.
“Down in the Yankee bull pen they begin to squirm around.”
“Lasorda throws his hat away and hugs Garvey.”
“Lasorda throws his hat away and runs out with his head and arms…”
“Guerrero…getting a bear hug from Tommy Lasorda.”
“In the gloaming here in New York.”
“Breeze blowing to right.”
“Most of the field in shade.”
The afternoon sun has resulted in the “lengthy fingers of shadows.”
And occasionally Vin Scully even lip reads, especially during the rhubarbs. “’Terrible’ I think he said while chewing on his gum.” Scully’s broadcasts are ripe with such physical details.
Scully has obvious affection for nicknames, will occasionally even make one up for a player. The nicknames clearly add color to the broadcasts. “The O Dog as they call Orlando (Hudson).” “For the Snakes (Arizona Diamondbacks), as they refer to them over in Phoenix.” In 2006 Scully spent several games anointing Marlon Anderson with the nickname “Merlin”. “Merlin the Magician triples off the score board in right.” “Merlin hits it upstairs.” In an interview with the Dodger owner, Frank McCourt, Scully referred to him as “master of the house,” “the boss.” He enjoys word play, Scully referred to Dodger pitcher Hong-Chih Kuo as “Status Kuo.” Carlos Martinez is at least one of several baseball players who has inherited the moniker, “Old Daddy Longlegs.” Steve Carlton, “Lefty as they call him,” was one of the greats to inherit the “Lefty” nickname from the likes of Lefty Gomez and Lefty Grove. Scully made much of the fact that Bill Singer, “they call him Billy No No,” had gotten his nickname well before his no-hit game, because of the way his head bobbed back and forth when he walked. Carlos Lee, the “Pride of Panama,” reminds one of Scully’s awareness of the many places major league players come from. In like fashion Dodger pitcher, Sammy Saito, was referred to as, “the Man from Miagi (Japan).”
Ozzie Smith was one of several gold glove infielders recognized by Scully as, “The magician at short.” Certainly most baseball fans would know that Willie Mays was sometimes called the “Say Hey Kid,” but with his insider sense of history, Scully also reports that, “Willie Mays was always called Buck,” by baseball people who knew him. Ray Durham inherited a diminutive nickname from that of boxing legend, Sugar Ray Leonard, “Little Sugar Ray.” Scully has always delighted in pitcher, “Boomer” Wells, and loved telling stories of Wells’ collection of Babe Ruth memorabilia, and how Wells once tried to wear a Yankee cap that had been owned by Ruth in one of his Yankee games. Scully sometimes refers to the Florida Marlins as the “Fish.” Scully offered a telling observation in noting that Chris Floyd had the “nickname ‘Glass’ for years” (because of frequent injuries) and humorously added that “there might be a crack in that Baccarat crystal.” Such details add welcome color to the game, and also lend a sense of baseball tradition.
Certainly one of the great pleasures of listening to Scully is this use of colorful language. The pitcher throws a slider, and “snakes it in there.” Over a period of listening to many games the likening of a fast player to a rabbit appears and reappears. “The Dodgers have a rabbit in Lofton.” “Sandwiched in between rabbits.” “Look out now, there’s a rabbit loose!” “Walking another rabbit.” In explaining that a pitcher is having difficulty deciding whether to concentrate on the batter, or holding two fast runners to their respective bases, Scully remarks that the pitcher is on the “horns of a dilemma, surrounded by a couple of rabbits.” However, any wolves after such rabbits are more likely to be in the stands, yelping at a player on the field, “and the wolves are all over Kent,” or, “of course the wolves are all over him.”
Images of movement add color to the play by play descriptions. “The Dodgers trying to cut him off at the pass,” to stop a well hit ball from getting between the outfielders for an extra base hit. “A big boost,” describes a play that might help a team keep a game score closer. “Furcal went up the ladder,” jumping high to catch a line drive at shortstop. Over the course of a season Scully will go back to the ladder image, “Up the ladder went Tomko.” Dodger pitcher, Hong Chih Kuo “climbed two mountains…twice undergone Tommy John surgery.” After what looked like a catch, the ball, “jumps right out of his glove,” or perhaps, “spins right out of the leather.”
Scully uses a wide variety of common images without them seeming like clichés. “The wild pitch really scrambled his eggs.” He describes a slow breaking ball as a “ballroom curve ball.” He says about an easy catch, “he’ll put that in the ball bag,” or that, it was a “piece of cake fly ball.” He says about a player who could not make a swing on an inside fastball, “Chad, tied up.” On a drizzly day when the Padres have a big lead Scully observes that, “San Diego is singing in the rain and they don’t need Gene Kelly.” Regarding an injured player who was not fielding well, he adds, “but he carries thunder in that bat.” He says about Dodger outfielder Rick Monday, who has begun to hit very well, “Monday seems to be getting stronger, he hit what looked like a marble.” He uses the nickname of the truly outstanding pitcher, Ron Guidry, who has just given up a rare home run, “they call him Louisiana Lightning and he’s been hit by it.” On a cold day in Denver, Colorado, gazing at the snow well beyond the stadium, Scully describes it as, “a lacey shawl on the mountains.” Scully refers to the sky as the “canopy of blue overhead.” He refers to the outfielders in the late afternoon sun “dodging in and out the ribbons of sunlight.” The Dodgers “feel the warmth of the Division lead.” One of his favorite, thus recurring images is that of the gift box. A relief pitcher trying to save a game is “trying to tie the ribbon on the box,” “tie the ribbon on the box,” place “the proper ribbon on the box.”
Even the lines that Scully uses that may be familiar, do not sound so. For one reason, he rarely repeats them, for another he is quicker with them, not pausing to find other words, failing, and then choosing a hackneyed expression. They are merely a part of the quick stream of words capturing the action on the field. The ball was “hit downtown.” The grand slam home run was hit “on a bolt of lightening.” “That thing is hit upstairs.” A team that has scored enough runs to again make the score close, there is, “daylight at the end of the tunnel.” In a tight pennant race and a game both teams need to win: “Both teams on the railing.” With the Dodgers playing well in a tight pennant race, even the weather co-operates, “that sky is as bright as a new day.” The tall, thin player is described as “a string bean.” Late in the season with the Giants trying to keep the Dodgers from winning their division they are trying to “upset the Dodger apple cart.” Instead, “the Dodgers took the Giants to school.” About the player who had an unbelievable year the year before, “this year he’s come back to earth.” In a late season game in which the only satisfaction the Giants might gain was keeping the Dodgers from winning the pennant, Scully says that if the Giants were to finally get this win against the Dodgers, they could, “hold it close to their hearts until the next Spring.”
He will also turn a phrase to keep it fresh use. A player who seemingly had a play on a ball, but missed the ball entirely, “came up with a handful of empty.” Instead of comparing a player to an animal, Scully compares the game to one, “boy we’ve got a wild horse here at Coors Field.” A player splinters his bat and Scully remarks, “Go get another (bat) in the woodpile.” Because he has been in professional baseball since 1950 his use of anachronisms can even seem fresh. In a well-played game the Dodgers “have tied this little dandy up.” And “dandy” works because, “This is like old times.” For a player having an especially great game, “As they used to say on the sandlots, he’s unconscious.” The game is on the line, “so the fat’s in the fire.” How long has it been since a dollar was very much for a kid to spend? Nonetheless, Scully’s point about Greg Maddox, at forty years of age, effective for only about 70 pitches a game, thus has to be careful in how he spends his pitches. “It’s like what can you get if you go to the store with a dollar?” The big breaking ball has been termed the “round house curve ball,” for at least fifty years. In earlier times the leading songs of the day might be played in a “hit parade,” and Scully remembers that in referring to a succession of base hits, “the hit parade continues.” Scully has even explained on air this propensity to mix the old with the new. He remarked about a fast player that he, “still has great wheels…you don’t hear that any more…the players had a slang term for every bodily part…an arm would be a hose…if you had an upset stomach or something—a bad boiler…now you hear ‘cool’ or ‘whatever.’ Like many literate authors, Scully has an ear for, and an appreciation of the colorfulness that can accompany slang. Scully’s grammar may be near perfect, but he has never been the prim school-marm about the various possibilities of language.
He will on occasion stoop to a pun or word play, but unlike announcers like Tim McCarver, who pauses so that the listener cannot miss the pun, Scully just drops them in, moves on, and the listener may be chuckling sometime after. It’s a “deer in the headlights kind of thing.” About a Colorado error, “oh, what a rock that is for a Rocky player.” A pitcher with a regal name was knocked out of the box and Scully said that pitcher “King has been reduced to a pauper.” He observed that Hennessey was “born in Toledo and Holy Toledo he still lives there.” In describing a pitcher’s success in retiring the side in order he uses Biblical word play, “as for (pitcher) Cain, he is certainly able.” “Lofton who lofted that triple.” A player known by his initials instead of his first name, “B.K. is K.O.ed.” In a “donnybrook” of a high scoring game Scully catches the mood and observes, “That hits off the wall, and this is an off the wall game…the Dodgers converting both extra points, huh…” (since two football touchdowns of 6 points each, and two made extra points, would yield the score of 14).
He consistently uses action words that contribute to the colorfulness of his narration. The infielder charges the slow ground ball, and “gobbles it.” The control-specialist pitcher, “flips it in there nicely.” The line drive hit was, “lashed.” The player who did not get a good swing on the ball, “chops it foul.” The unsuccessful hitter “taps out.” He says that Jeff Kemp had “seven home runs before you could blink an eye” when he first came up to the Dodgers. The pitcher “uncorked a wild pitch,” the runner “flies around to score,” the infielder, “bounced the tag.”
Organizing some of the ways that Scully employs colorful language is not to suggest that he has a particular pattern or formula. In fact the reverse is exactly the point. Scully reportedly is a voracious reader, and undoubtedly that helps him with his store of possibilities as he confronts each baseball game. Because he sees each game as the game into itself, he looks for unique ways to capture its distinction. Because of that he looks for patterns and themes, but not to fit the game he is watching into a cliché. In an early season game that featured a number of errors Scully notes that the players are, “trying to shake the rust and cob webs off.” He observes that Dodger outfielder J.D. Drew has “two pair of glasses, like having the upstairs and downstairs maid.” He observes of a pitcher who seemed to have tired, but works out of trouble, “he looked for all the world like he was spent.” He describes a feeble toss by the pitcher as “a weary pitch.” He describes a softly hit ball saying that the batter “hits it with the San Francisco morning paper.” The batter breaks his bat in hitting the ball and it “sounds like he used a banjo, had a twang to it.” When the relief pitcher comes in and is totally ineffectual Scully remarks that it is, “like leaving dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, you just aren’t doing the job.” He describes a collision at home plate as “knee caps over teacups.” He describes the very different experience of the losing and winning teams as the “litany of frustration, shouts of joy.”
Scully’s use of metaphor and of imagery are especially important to his success. His language is consistently inventive, even surprising. He will occasionally throw in a word like “balderdash” to comic effect. A comment by Elliot Eisner (p. 201) certainly applies to Scully. He “use(s) forms to present rather than represent conception or feeling.” This distinction between presenting and representing helps explain why it seems like Scully is in the game, instead of merely just calling it. His colorful language responds to the particulars taking place on the field as he presents them to the listeners.
A study of Scully’s use of language reveals two particular patterns in his use of metaphor, of images. Certainly Scully’s voice convinces one that while the games are games, they are, nonetheless, somehow very important. One of the primary ways he communicates that seriousness of purpose are within the metaphors he most uses. A preponderance of his metaphors are about either work/business or violence/conflict/war. (Chapter Nine argues that the significance of these serious metaphors is that they are the context for sentiments that he expresses about children, family, and ballpark emotions.)
First, Scully uses metaphors and images from jobs, work, business, and the marketplace.
Words of commerce. Business, hard work, cash, labor, spend, trade, acquisition, paid, trade, commercial, management, balances the books, dollars, sold, job, spent, contract, deposit. Scully’s frequent use of such images establishes baseball, at least metaphorically, as important business. This is not to say the listener is consciously aware of how often Scully uses work and business related metaphors. But, the use of such metaphors subconsciously communicates seriousness about the game of baseball. Even more so with the equally frequent images of danger, violence, combat, war. Life and death.
War, terror, danger, dying, speared, falls on their shields. Such metaphors create a strong sense of vulnerability, risk, violence in the struggle, combat, war that is metaphorically, baseball. The pleasantness of Scully’s voice is countered in such examples by the seriousness of the implicit images. Combined with the metaphors of work, little doubt is left about the seriousness of purpose of a major league baseball game.
All of Scully’s metaphors are not, however, so foreboding. From a study of his language I suspect that Scully does some fishing, and has more than familiarity with other games and sports.
He will use nautical allusions and images. “I’ll test the waters.” “He threw a dead fish over there to Nomar.” “Now he’s aboard.” Gonzo’s age has left him in “unchartered waters” at 39. “Sails a throw.” “Find themselves between the devil and the deep blue sea.” (Bonilla looks like he is) “playing under water.” “Storm signals are up for Felipe.” “Hendrickson pitching down hill…like trying to hit one drop of a waterfall.”
Scully also uses images and references from other games and sports (including Boxing, Golf, Cards, Cricket, Soccer, Tennis, Football, Basketball, Running, Gambling, Horse Racing, Weightlifting and even Acrobatics and Theatre):
From Boxing:
“Will not be able to answer the bell.”
“Unable to answer the bell.”
“When the bell rang.”
“Punched out.”
“Gotten off the floor.”
“Went the distance.”
From Golf:
“Chipped it foul.”
“Drives it, really drives it.”
“A drive in the gap.”
From Cards:
“A fistful of cards.” (a reference to the number of bench players that can still be used in a game).
“Wagner deals.”
From Cricket:
“A sticky wicket.”
Soccer:
Scully remarks that the crowd, “sounds like a British soccer crowd—they’ll sing in between pitches.”
He recalls having seen a British soccer match and that “the crowd was hollering at the British team that lost, “Rubbish, rubbish”, and adds, “well, you’re not going to hear that in New York,” and Scully chuckles.
Tennis:
“That swing by Helton, like something out of Wimbledon or the U.S. Open…lob shot, over the net.”
Gambling, particularly dice:
“Rolling a seven.”
“Not when the Padres rolled a 7.”
In terms of the manager’s probable strategy he says, “All bets are off.”
In referring to the bases being loaded Scully says it is the, “Jackpot spot.”
And the team “cashed in.”
American Football:
the infielder “Fumbles it.”
Basketball:
Scully describes Dodger shortstop Rafael Furcal as the “point man offensively and defensively.”
From Theatre:
The player is “Center stage.”
“Dead center on the stage.”
“Pretty good opening act.”
“Curtain call…is it the end of the play?”
“Before we get off the stage.”
Fishing:
“Wouldn’t bite on the breaking ball.”
Darts:
“Threw a dart.”
The Circus:
A pitcher in constant trouble, but still in there is doing a “High wire act.”
Weight Lifting:
“His option took some heavy lifting—10 million dollars.”
Horse Racing:
It’s “up to the Dodgers to go to the whip.”
“He was off to the races.”
The starting pitchers are pitching like, “quarter horses in a mile race.”
“Fast ball whacked to center, on his horse, going back after it, it’s over his head.”
Such frequent references to other sources of entertainment places Baseball in the wider context of Sports and Games from many lands.
Scully certainly uses other metaphors and images, and he uses an extremely wide range of sources. While the images of commerce, battle, sports and games are most frequent, his sources to help his own game depictions seemingly know no bounds. When a pitcher pitches the batter tight inside Scully informs the listener, “they used to say…you undressed the hitter,” but he acknowledges, “but I haven’t heard that in awhile.” He actually reads from a poem about Dodger pitcher, Greg Maddox, and added, that, “and in some ways I guess there’s poetry involved tonight with both Maddox and Wells.
He often makes a special spatial point about high and low. “Helton could not get up to get it.” “The pitch is low, the throw is high.” “To get high on the board.” “Furcal goes up the ladder.”
He frequently makes allusions to other writing, classic or popular. “It’s an old song, ‘if you ask me, I could write a book.” He alludes to Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet and lines about a rose by any other name, in saying, “By any other name it’s a strike out.” He echoes the Biblical Gospel of Matthew in asking, “What manner of man is that out there?” He references a prophesy from Isaiah in saying about 20 year old rookie sensation, Fernando Valenzuela, “And a little child shall lead them.” He uses a line from Eugene O’Neill in calling a cheap base hit, “a humble thing, but thine own.” (Scully has repeated this line here and there, sometimes saying “a modest thing” instead of “humble thing.” Scully cites O’Neill specifically saying, “Eugene O’Neill wrote a great line…He said there’s not present and there’s no future, there’s only the past over and over now,” which Scully used to report the Orel Hershiser pursuit of a Don Drysdale, two record breaking streaks both covered twenty years apart in the booth by Scully. He uses the famous line from Julius Caesar (the Latin Veni, Vidi, Vici, translated, I came, I saw, I conquered) to make a pun about Vinny Castilla: “Vinny Vidi, Vici.” When Vin Scully said about reserve, Toby Hall, “they also serve who only sit and watch,” he was probably alluding to the last line of a poem by John Milton, On His Blindness, that reads, “They also serve who only stand and wait.” Scully’s line, “Thereby hangs the tale,” can be found in both Shakespeare’s As You Like It and Taming of the Shrew. When Scully says, “The Dodgers certainly are not about to go quietly into the good night,” he echoes Dylan Thomas’ line, “do not go gentle into that good night.” Presumably he had been reading Steinbeck (author of The Wayward Bus) when Scully observed about a late arriving bus, “The wayward bus has shown up in centerfield here at Shea Stadium in New York.” Scully references Hemingway’s famous book, “The Old Man and the Sea,” when he suggests that Giant manager, Felipe Alou is “baseball’s answer to the old man and the sea, he loves to fish.”
Such references or allusions to the classics are never pretentious. Scully obviously delights in the use of language, whether from slang or carefully turned phrases. Nor does he try to quote lines accurately. As mentioned how he turns more common phrases, Scully turns the classic phrase to meet the need he has for calling what he sees before him. He uses such lines for punctuation, for emphasis, and they do give an appropriate “classic” touch to his broadcasts.
His use of analogies, metaphors, similes, his “figurative use of language” further demonstrate his range. He mixes metaphors to exclaim how difficult a catch the outfielder had made. “That was anything but a room service ball. It didn’t come to him, he had to go and get it, and he was able to spear it on the dead run.” After a Dodger loss had cost them first place Scully observes, “And it is moving day, San Diego moving into first place.” Scully notes that the batter, “Hits it right on the button.” Scully portentously notes that, “The big shadows creeping across the field are not nature’s shadows, but Phillies and Padres victories.” The September, 1972 issue of Baseball Digest has Scully’s quip that, “He (Bob Gibson) pitches as though he’s double parked.” He described the Dodger stadium crowd watching Koufax’ perfect game as having, “A million butterflies.” In 1959 Scully observed that shortstop Maury “Wills runs downhill,” suggesting how fast Wills is. Almost forty years later, and in contrast, he notes that aging and former catcher Mike Piazza looked like he was “running up hill.”
When highly successful pitcher, Tom Glavine, had two strikes on a batter Scully quipped that “they should dedicate this game to Otis, because like an elevator, they’re (the hitters) going up and down, up and down.” He remarks about veteran Greg Maddox, who had a limit of 70 pitches per game, that he “reminds me of someone who doesn’t have much money and has to go to the grocery store,” (meaning that he will use each pitch very carefully). With a succession of relief pitchers having difficulty holding a lead, Scully observes, “There’s a hole in the dyke right now.” When future Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddox runs into unexpected trouble, Scully remarks, “Maddox, shaken to his roots.”
When the Dodgers were dominating another team, Scully whimsically suggested, “Or the Dodgers can drive them off the property.” When a player failed to deliver, Scully concludes that that, “closes the door on J.D. Drew.” Usually reliable Greg “Maddox, soundly pushed around.” Mets agile shortstop “Jose Reyes, like an Indian rubber man.” Lumbering first baseman Cliff Floyd “looked like there was a stone in his shoe.” When an early Dodger lead evaporated Scully noted that, “the milk has certainly soured,” and in another such instance that such an event, “just knocked the wheels off the Dodger cart.” In bringing home a run for the Dodgers Scully watches, “Kent coming home to roost as well.” In a close game where all the players were standing, Scully observes the “Snakes (Diamondbacks) on the bench all lined up at the railing” and that they looked “like birds on a wire.” He describes a batter raising his bat, “like an antenna on your car.” With his increasing sense of how quickly time flows, he notes that the Dodgers had a quick lead but for it, “only to disappear, like the seasons.”
Scully does not rely upon anecdote, but he does spice his broadcasts with ones that become appropriate to the broadcast. When there was a fan group at the Mets game from Secaucus, New Jersey, Vin recalled:
“Have you heard of Secaucus, New Jersey…Secaucus known as a great center for pigs, in fact when you drive through Secaucus, well, you know it, the odor is, well, odorous, well, anyway, the Joe Pignatano fan club from Secaucus, New Jersey, is here tonight. Of course for years Joe had the nickname of Piggy, and still does.”
In an earlier era the Brooklyn Dodgers were sometimes referred to as “The Bums” because of their hapless ways. When someone has made a particularly peculiar play, Vin might tell a story from the old days.
“There’s an old joke that they used to tell in Brooklyn many years ago, one man walking by the ball park, the other is in the ball park, and the guy outside hollers how are the Dodgers doing? The fellow inside says that they have two on, and the guy outside says what base? Well tonight they’ll dust off that joke, there were two on and two out at home.”
Scully revels in pleasant coincidences and turns them into short stories.
“Life is amazing. You take Willie Randolph and Omar Maniah, the one-one pitch on the way is a strike, Maniah was a sometimes actor 25 years ago, Canon was shooting a commercial, Maniah was the base runner on the commercial sliding into second. Who was the second baseman? You guessed it. Willie Randolph. 25 years later Randolph is the manager and Omar is the general manager.”
The Dodgers did not win their first World Series until 1955. A famous slogan from their earlier years was, “Wait Till Next Year.” The original New York Mets were similarly a hapless team until the “Miracle Mets” of 1969. Reacting to the presumed optimism of the start of a new season, Scully recollected,
“I will never forget opening up the season in Shea Stadium in ’64, how times have changed, Don Drysdale struck out the lead off hitter and a guy in the stands held up a sign “wait ‘til next year”, I’ll never forget that.”
Scully especially looks for the “human” story, and for Scully that would mean an affirming story. He recently told a fairly long story about Arizona infielder, Craig Counsel, going to a team press conference that had been called to announce that long time Diamondback star, Luis Gonzales, would not be given a new contract. Players usually do not go to such events. When asked why he went to the press conference Scully reported that Counsel said that Gonzales had not only been the best player on the team, but the “best guy on the team.” Such stories, difficult to get into a broadcast between pitches, since between innings are devoted to commercials, deepen and enrich the Scully broadcasts. Scully has developed the knack of speaking in a series of short phrases that are easily interrupted to tell what just happened on a next pitch. He also realizes, especially on the radio, that he does not have to call a play as quickly as it occurs on the field. His description can extend a bit beyond the actual time a play takes. Scully rarely uses aphorisms, but one will hear an occasion such tidbits as,
“Too many cooks spoil a broth,”
or,
there is “no rest for the weary.”
Scully is particularly good at elaborating a description:
“One of the more interesting aspects of this game of baseball is to have a veteran pitcher like Maddox, a gold glove, and a fine base stealer in Dave Roberts. Roberts wants to see the best move to first that Maddox has without being picked off.”
“It’s not in the bullpen, it’s in the upper deck, a monstrous blow…three people sitting up there and they’ve got company, a National League ball.”
Scully uses inflection when he wants to emphasize something. He will also mark it with a short emphatic phrase, or in special circumstances something akin to a sigh of delight. On a batter nearly being hit, “Boy that was close!” In a tight pennant race, “Each game of paramount importance.” A key moment in the game, “Underlined the fact.” With a runner on third base Scully invariably checks to see how many wild pitches a pitcher has that year. In one instance he was amazed to discover, “Hold your breath on this one—14 wild pitches, 14!” After a remarkable play, “How do you like that?” “Oh yeah!” “Mmmh.” “Whoop.” Especially about a young baseball star Scully might admiringly say, “He is something!” With the game on the line the batter is, “Up there in a Biiig spot!” For exclamation, “Wow!” With two outs in the ninth, “It has come down to this…” When a player comes through in the clutch with a big and long hit, “Boy did Betemit lean on that one!” When there has been a lot of entertaining action early in the game Vin chuckles, “what a night this might be!” One of his favorite expressions, “What a night!” For how many years has Scully slipped in the occasional, “Holy mackerel”
He has repeatedly stated that he relies on the crowd to signal the appropriate emotional response to any game. Thus he observes, “the sound of a cheering crowd tells it all!” Scully has little mercy for the inept. “Kim messed it up every way possible!” When James Loney was on his way to a Dodger record tying nine RBIs in one game, Scully questioned, “Would you believe, Loney has just hit a home run? “9 runs batted in, what an afternoon!” The final score of that game was, “19-11, mmmph!” He admires the big pitch. “Oh, good breaking ball to get Holliday!” Admires the great defensive play, “Throws and gets him—what a play!” When it is by a player known for such excellence he might observe, “Of course Vizcaino has been doing it all his life!” When the Dodgers stage a remarkable comeback, Scully will also look to the dugouts, not only the crowds for his reaction shots. “You should see the Dodger dugout, wwwhoh!”
Scully is never, ever a cheerleader. Such would be unprofessional. But he is a connoisseur who appreciates excellence. “Ain’t it grand?” “Well, what an exhibition!” During the Fernandomania of 1981, Scully captured the times. When the pitcher, Valenzuela, doubled in the only run of the game Scully marveled, “is there anything this kid can’t do?” As Valenzuela continue to pile up victories, going 8-0 to start the season, Scully remarked, “I swear Fernando you are too much in any language…can you imagine?…listen to this crowd just talking to themselves…Dodger Stadium, what a great place to be!” In a game Valenzuela might have lost except for a ninth inning home run by Pedro Guerrero, “It’s gone, Fernando, it’s gone.”
More time is spent on Scully’s truisms, his observations and insights, in Chapter Five, but their use is also a part of Scully’s careful use of language. Here are just a few that suggest his careful attention. Having discussed hitting and pitching slumps earlier, and then seeing a game’s turning point decided by a runner’s speed, Scully adds, “And that old line in baseball, ‘speed never has a slump’ and boy is that true!” Scully is particularly sensitive to the learning curve for rookies. A baseball purist, Scully wonders about players who fail to pay full attention. On an inning ending play, it was the third out, but rookie, Matt Kemp, started to throw the ball to the infield, “then he wasn’t sure how many outs there were, it’s that kind of game.” Maybe such is understandable, “They (rookies) are not accustomed to playing this late in the year.” Rookie Ethier “has been struggling, they all do.
Scully does not ordinarily tell jokes, but much of his material is amusing. He will use irony, understatement, hyperbole, word play, wry comments and all of it communicates a joy for the game. A pitcher is getting hit hard, the manager goes out to the mound to talk to the catcher, and Scully recalls, “The old joke…how is his stuff? I don’t know, I haven’t caught any of it yet.” Perhaps remembering the Don Liddle story after the famous Willie Mays catch in 1954, Scully says about a pitcher just saved by a miraculous somersault catch with two outs and the bases loaded, “Cassidy comes in and says, well I got my man.” Similarly he recounts about a third strike fast ball in the high nineties, “The old joke”…”(it) sounded outside.
Scully rarely uses sarcasm. He has no patience for fans running onto the field, nor their playing with Beach Balls in the stands. He reacts to one interrupting play by landing on the field, “…a beach ball, that a lot of news.” In a very long, sloppily played game, Scully says, “If they ever get finished…” His voice was ironically humorous, not sarcastic, when he said about a pitcher’s pickoff throw to second base, that it was, “The best throw he made on the day.” Similarly he remarked about another pitcher getting shelled, the pitcher getting hit hard was a “boy born in Germany, wishes he was back there I’m sure.
Scully uses understatement, exaggeration and even hyperbole for comic effect. In referring to the cavernous ballpark in Colorado he said, “In this little playground.” In an on field altercation where no punches were being thrown Scully said, “This is what they used to call a Pier 6 Brawl.” When Luis Gonzales left six men on base in a game Scully suggest he was probably thinking, “I left a village out there.” With the Philadelphia Phillies losing a tough late season game that probably ended their playoff hopes Scully stated, “There might be a crack in the Liberty Bell, but a chasm through Philadelphia right now.” Scully dotes on the characters in baseball and noted humorously about the seeming nonchalance of pitcher Livan Hernandez, who was talking casually to fans in the stands while standing in the on deck circle, “For Livan Hernandez it’s like the beer leagues.” After a difficult inning pitched, Scully, nonetheless, notes that, “Livan walks off as if he’s a the County Fair,” and Scully chuckles in delight. Scully is reportedly one of the nicest, kindest of people, but even he is not beyond chuckling at a pratfall, “Breaking ball brings him to his knees and then down on his hips.” And he recalled chuckling at a game when a fan had won sixty bags of potato chips and they were all delivered to his stadium seat.
Scully’s voice suggested a twinkle in his eye when he said about pitcher Ray King, that he was “rumored to be 235 pounds…and to repeat the famous line attached to Ray King…I am not fat, I am thick.” Other such details lighten the broadcast. After yet another broken bat instead of saying bat boy Scully says, that the “Spear boy goes out to retrieve the spear.”
Often the details Scully selects add levity. About a 6’10” pitcher Scully says, “Yes, Mark Hendrickson casts a long shadow…the Dodgers are trying to cast a long shadow…” About a pitcher who has been given a very large lead Scully is sure that Pitcher Kuo, “would like to Fedex some runs” to San Francisco,” the next place he is scheduled to pitch. About a player who had a difficult time getting the baseball out of his glove, “Pedro had a white rat in his glove, but he was able to kill it…wouldn’t you know?” When a small infielder nearly ran into a very large and muscular outfielder, Scully described it as, “Passed the bow of Barry Bonds.” Scully wasn’t being unsympathetic when he noted about the cold weather that it was, “Not the kind of night to have a body like Nomar Garciaparra’s,” who had a number of injuries. Scully said it was a change-up, “that just died of exhaustion on its way to the plate.” In the last game of the season when the outcome suddenly no longer mattered because of what had happened elsewhere, Scully mentioned, “the Dodgers could play me today.” In a one sided late season game in Colorado with the Rockies emptying their bench, Scully observed, “This is the last time the Dodgers will see Colorado this year, and it looks like they are going to see all of them.” Scully says that pitcher, Livan Hernandez’ soft pitches are like “releasing balloons in the general direction of home plate.” With the remaining games of the year to be played on the road, Scully describes it as, “Running out of home.” With the pennant still on the line Scully describes having to bring one of the Dodgers’ best relievers into the game early as, “It’s a little early, but it’s also a little late.” He describes the batter’s response to a particularly good fastball as “Swinging at an echo.” And when the season ends without a playoff win, Scully describes it, not as a lost war, but, “the wheels came off the wagon.”
Gerunds, participles, and participle phrases are economical words and word phrases for suggesting action, and thus energy, and thus for creating interest. He enlivens all of his broadcasts with them. They have the effect of being both descriptive and conveying a sense of action at the same time. Here are a number that he has used, rarely with noticeable repetition.
Such short expressions that suggest dramatic action and are one of Scully’s descriptive staples.
Scully makes judicious and metaphoric use of nouns and verbs (his style very reminiscent of influential Cornell professor, William Strunk, Jr. and his widely circulated book, Elements of Style). Scully’s nouns especially have a baseball lingo to them:
The runner (gets a) “ride home.”
The ball is “hit to the hole, or, “up the middle.”
“The ground ball is a “hopper,”
a “chopper to Lugo,”
“a big chopper,“
a “little dribbler,”
“a come backer” (to the pitcher),
“a little roller,”
“a little nubber right back to Tomko,”
“a shot right through the legs,”
a “squib single,”
“a hopper hit just fair inside the first base line.”
The batter has “some sock,”
“goes down on a hook (curve).”
The players have a “horrific collision.”
The player is accomplished, “no slouch at it for good measure.”
To start the double play, “the shovel to” the shortstop.
The knuckle ball had “a lot of wobble on it.”
On a difficult day the game is “a grind for him.”
The player who had to get out of the way of a pitch, had to “leave Dodge.”
The players “did some magic in the 4th inning.”
It was a “1st inning road block against the Dodgers.”
“For a split second (the player) lost sight of the ball.”
The strengths of the Colorado team are the “pillars on which the Rockies are built.”
They did it for the “plaudits of the crowd.”
He uses action verbs and phrases to heighten the sense of action:
The infielder dove and “smothered” the ball,
“flips over to first,”
“feeds Batista,”
“tried to backhand,”
“picks it off.”
The outfielder, “tried to flag it.”
The relief pitcher “shut down the inning,”
“is burned immediately,”
“flips over to first,”
“turns, ready, and deals,”
“jammed him,”
“can bring it,”
“outthinks” Drew.”
The starting pitcher is “touched up,”
“being abused here in the second inning,”
is “hungry for a win,”
“snaps a fastball,”
“works away.”
In a collision “someone’s shaken up.”
The hard thrower “blows Cameron away.”
The hitter “bangs it into left field,”
“shows bunt”
“drills it foul,”
“drives one,”
“staggered,”
“chases one,”
gets “a pitch to handle,”
“drops one into right center,”
“chased it,”
“delivers,”
“lunged for that,”
“nudges one into right,”
is “punched out,”
“taps out,”
“legs it out,”
“drags a bunt.”
The runner “advances to third,”
is “nailed at the plate,”
“cut down.”
The batted ball is “lifted to left field,”
“sliced to right,”
“rattled around,”
“is hammered,”
“bangs off the façade,”
“squirted off the end of the bat,”
is “blistered.”
The pitched ball is “clocked,”
“chased and missed.”
The Padres “stumble.”
The Dodgers “load the bases,”
“wriggled out of the inning,”
“wasted a chance,”
“tip toe through the sixth,”
“cling” to a lead,
“piled up 17 hits,”
“forge ahead.”
The loss, “snaps the Dodgers two-game winning streak.”
“Pull down the curtain.”
And, again (as suggested by Strunk’s “elements of style), Scully minimizes his use of adjectives and adverbs. Here are some of the rare examples: Russell Martin is “one tough hombre.” About the pitch, “what a big rainbow curve.” Leaving men on base was the miss of a “golden opportunity”. Adverbs like “tantalizingly,” “ignominiously,” and “handily,” are also relatively rare.
Scully has word mastery. By pointing out the depth and breadth of his use of figurative language, the evidence mounts that he is a truly remarkable wordsmith and artist. As Eisner (p.200) explains about metaphors: “metaphor is, of course, a centrally important device. Metaphor breaks the bonds of conventional usage to exploit the power of connotation and analogy. It capitalizes on surprise by putting meanings into new combination and through such combinations awakens our senses. Metaphor is the arch enemy of the stock response.” The amassed examples of Scully’s use of metaphor suggest that he is the master of the metaphor, and because of this, incredibly successful at avoiding clichés and incredibly successful at creating rich broadcasts, which become art.