Dickson: Homage to Vin Scully
From Paul Dickson at The National Pastime Museum on October 4, 2016:
Vincent Edward “Vin” Scully is an American sportscaster best known as the voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Now 88, Scully will retire at the end of the 2016 season. As his retirement approached, Scully was accorded praise that is rare in any profession—let alone for a play-by-play baseball announcer.
“Vin Scully is only the finest, most-listened-to baseball broadcaster that ever lived,” wrote Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated in May, “and even that honorific does not approach proper justice to the man. He ranks with Walter Cronkite among America’s most-trusted media personalities, with Frank Sinatra and James Earl Jones among its most-iconic voices, and with Mark Twain, Garrison Keillor and Ken Burns among its preeminent storytellers.”
Born in the Bronx on November 27, 1927, Scully came to the game as a fan of the New York Giants and a college outfielder for Fordham University. Scully actually began announcing in uniform. As Scully recently told an interviewer: “I played center field, and I would stand out there and actually call pitches and anything that took place in front of me. I couldn’t say, ‘I’m going back on a fly ball,’ but I could talk about, ‘There’s a ground ball to shortstop, and a throw to first in time for the out.’ I could do that kind of stuff, while I was standing in center field. I would do it out loud. There was an elderly priest who used to sit in the bleachers, and he used to always tease me about doing the ballgame out loud.”
Read the full article here: http://www.thenationalpastimemuseum.com/article/homage-vin-scully
Originally published: October 4, 2016. Last Updated: October 4, 2016.