Vin Scully Biography

Vincent Edward "Vin" Scully (born November 29, 1927) is an American sportscaster, best known as the play-by-play announcer for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. He has been with the team since its days in Brooklyn. His 64 seasons with the Dodgers (1950"present) is the longest tenure of any broadcaster with a single team in professional sports history, and he is second by one year to only Tommy Lasorda in terms of number of years with the Dodgers organization in any capacity. Scully currently calls most Dodger home games (and selected road games) on Prime Ticket, KCAL television, and KLAC radio. He is known for his dulcet voice, lyrically descriptive style, and signature introduction to Dodger games: "It's time for Dodger baseball! Hi, everybody, and a very pleasant good (day/evening) to you, wherever you may be."

Early life

Born in The Bronx, Scully grew up in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. He made ends meet by delivering beer and mail, pushing garment racks, and cleaning silver in the basement of the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York City. His father was a silk salesman; his mother a Roman Catholic homemaker of Irish descent from whom her son inherited his red hair. Scully attended high school at the Fordham Preparatory School in The Bronx. He decided that he wanted to become a sports announcer when he became fascinated with the football broadcasts on the radio.

Broadcasting career

From Fordham to CBS Radio

After serving in the United States Navy for two years, Scully began his career as a student broadcaster and journalist at Fordham University. While at Fordham, he helped found its FM radio station WFUV (which now presents a Vin Scully Lifetime Achievement Award each year), was assistant sports editor for Volume 28 of The Fordham Ram his senior year, sang in a barbershop quartet, played center field for the Fordham Rams baseball team, called radio broadcasts for Rams baseball, football, and basketball, earned a degree, and sent about 150 letters to stations along the Eastern seaboard. He received only one response, from CBS Radio affiliate WTOP in Washington, which made him a fill-in.

Scully was then recruited by Red Barber, the sports director of the CBS Radio Network, for its college football coverage. Scully impressed his boss with his coverage of a November 1949 game from frigid Fenway Park in Boston, despite having to do so from the stadium roof. Expecting an enclosed press box, Scully had left his coat and gloves at his hotel, but never mentioned his discomfort on the air. Barber mentored Scully and told him that if he wanted to be a successful sports announcer he should never be a "homer" (openly showing a rooting interest for the team that employs you), never listen to other announcers, and keep his opinions to himself.

Brooklyn Dodgers (1950"57)

In 1950, Scully joined Barber and Cornelius (Connie) Desmond in the Brooklyn Dodgers radio and television booths. When Barber got into a salary dispute with World Series sponsor Gillette in 1953, Scully took Barber's spot for the 1953 World Series. At the age of 25, Scully became the youngest man to broadcast a World Series game (a record that stands to this day). Barber left the Dodgers after the 1953 season to work for the New York Yankees. Scully eventually became the team's principal announcer. Scully announced the Dodgers' games in Brooklyn until 1957, after which the club moved to Los Angeles.

Scully's view of the game was always wider than what was happening on the field in front of him. In a game in Ebbets Field in 1957, an odd series of game-related events required the Dodgers to use their third-string catcher, Joe Pignatano, in the middle of the game. Scully knew that Pignatano's wife had recently had a baby and she was not at the game " she might not be listening to the broadcast. Not wanting her to miss her husband's major league debut behind the plate, he suggested that any listeners who might know the Pignatano family should pick up the phone and alert them.

Los Angeles Dodgers (1958"1993)

Scully accompanied the Dodgers to their new location beginning with the 1958 season, and quickly became popular in Southern California. During the Dodgers' first four seasons in Los Angeles, the fans had difficulty following the action in the very large Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and it soon became common for them to bring transistor radios to the games to hear Scully and partner Jerry Doggett describe the action. This practice continued even after the team moved to the much smaller Dodger Stadium for the 1962 baseball season. Radio and television engineers often had difficulty compensating for the sound of Scully's play-by-play reverberating through the stands at Dodger home games.

In 1964, the New York Yankees offered Scully the opportunity to succeed Mel Allen as their lead play-by-play announcer. Scully chose to remain with the Dodgers, however, and his popularity in Los Angeles had become such that in 1976 Dodger fans voted him the "most memorable personality" in the history of the franchise.

Unlike the modern style in which multiple sportscasters have an on-air conversation (usually with one functioning as play-by-play announcer and another as color commentator), Scully, and his broadcast partners Jerry Doggett (1956"1987) and Ross Porter (1977"2004) generally called games solo, trading with each other inning-by-inning. In the 1980s and 1990s, Scully would call the entire radio broadcast except for the 3rd and 7th inning; allowing the other Dodger commentators to broadcast an inning. When Doggett retired after the 1987 season, he was replaced by Hall-of-Fame Dodgers pitcher Don Drysdale, who previously broadcast games for the California Angels. Drysdale died in his hotel room following a heart attack before a game against the Montreal Expos in 1993, resulting in a very difficult broadcast for Scully and Porter, who were told of the death but could not mention it on-air until Drysdale's family had been notified and the official announcement of the death made. Scully announced the news of his death by saying, "Never have I been asked to make an announcement that hurts me as much as this one. And I say it to you as best I can with a broken heart."

CBS (1975"1982)

Like Red Barber and Mel Allen in the 1940s, Scully retained his credentials in football even as his baseball career blossomed. From 1975 to 1982, Scully announced the televised National Football League games for CBS Sports, teaming with several different color analysts including Sonny Jurgensen, Alex Hawkins, George Allen, Jim Brown, John Madden, and Hank Stram. One of his most famous NFL calls was that of Dwight Clark's touchdown catch in the NFC Championship Game on January 10, 1982 (which Scully called with Stram as his final NFL telecast for CBS), that put the San Francisco 49ers into Super Bowl XVI.

Scully also contributed to the network's tennis and PGA Tour golf coverage in the late 1970s and early 1980s, usually working the golf events with Pat Summerall, Ken Venturi, and Ben Wright. From 1975 to 1982, he was part of the team that covered the Masters tournament for CBS. Scully's network commitments led to him working a reduced schedule with the Dodgers, who hired Ross Porter to help pick up the slack.

In 1977, Scully began his first of two stints calling baseball for CBS Radio, broadcasting the All-Star Game through 1982 (usually paired with Brent Musburger) and the World Series from 1979 to 1982 (alongside Sparky Anderson).

Departure from CBS

Scully decided to leave CBS in favor of a job calling baseball games for NBC (beginning in 1983) following a dispute over assignment prominence (according to CBS Sports producer Terry O'Neil, in the book The Game Behind the Game). CBS decided going into the 1981 NFL season that John Madden, whom CBS had hired in 1979 and who had called games alongside Frank Glieber and Gary Bender his first two years, was going to be the star color commentator of their NFL television coverage. But they had trouble figuring out who was going to be his play-by-play partner, since Scully was in a battle with CBS' lead play-by-play announcer Pat Summerall for the position. At the time Scully was the number two announcer for CBS, a position he had held since 1975, and was calling games alongside the former Kansas City Chiefs head coach Hank Stram, who had been promoted from CBS' number three broadcast team alongside Curt Gowdy.

To resolve the situation, both Scully and Summerall were paired with Madden in four-week stretches, which coincided with each of their respective absences due to other engagements. While Summerall was away calling the U.S. Open tennis for CBS as he did every September, Scully called the first four weeks of the season alongside Madden. After that Scully went on to cover the National League Championship Series and World Series for CBS Radio, as he had done for the past few Octobers, and Summerall returned to the broadcast booth to work with Madden. Scully then teamed with Stram for the remainder of the NFL season.

After the eighth week of the NFL season, CBS Sports decided that Summerall meshed more with Madden than Scully did and it named him to be the announcer who would call Super Bowl XVI for CBS on January 24, 1982, at the Pontiac Silverdome. An angry Scully, who felt that his intelligence had been insulted by the move, was assigned as a consolation prize that year's NFC Championship Game, which he called alongside Stram. Summerall took Stram's place alongside Jack Buck to call the game over CBS Radio.

NBC (1983"1989)

Outside of Southern California, Vin Scully is probably best remembered as NBC television's lead baseball broadcaster from 1983 to 1989. Besides calling the Saturday Game of the Week for NBC, Scully called three World Series (1984, 1986, and 1988), four National League Championship Series (1983, 1985, 1987, and 1989), and four All-Star Games (1983, 1985, 1987, and 1989). Scully also reworked his Dodgers schedule during this period, broadcasting home games on the radio, and road games for the Dodgers television network, with Fridays and Saturdays off so he could work for NBC.

Teaming with Joe Garagiola (who was the full time lead play-by-play man for NBC's baseball telecasts from 1976 to 1982 before converting into a color commentary role to work with Scully) for NBC telecasts (with the exception of 1989, when he was paired with Tom Seaver after Garagiola left NBC Sports following the 1988 World Series due to a contract dispute), Scully was on hand for several key moments in baseball history: Fred Lynn hitting the first grand slam in All-Star Game history (1983); the 1984 Detroit Tigers winning the World Series (along the way, Scully called Tigers pitcher Jack Morris' no-hitter against the Chicago White Sox on April 7); Ozzie Smith's game-winning home run in Game 5 of the 1985 National League Championship Series; the sixth game of the 1986 World Series; the 1987 All-Star Game in Oakland, which was deadlocked at 0"0 before Tim Raines broke up the scoreless tie with a triple in the top of the 13th inning; the first official night game in the history of Chicago's Wrigley Field (August 9, 1988); Kirk Gibson's game-winning home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series; and chatting with former President of the United States Ronald Reagan (who said to Scully, "I've been out of work for six months and maybe there's a future here.") in the booth during the 1989 All-Star Game in Anaheim.

On Saturday, June 3, 1989, Scully was doing the play-by-play for the NBC Game of the Week in St. Louis, where the Cardinals beat the Chicago Cubs in 10 innings. Meanwhile, the Dodgers were playing a series in Houston, where Scully flew to be on hand to call the Sunday game of the series. However, the Saturday night game between the teams was going into extra innings when Scully arrived in town, so he went to the Astrodome instead of his hotel. He picked up the play-by-play, helping to relieve the other Dodger announcers, who were doing both television and radio, and broadcast the final 13 innings (after already calling 10 innings in St. Louis), as the game went 22 innings. He broadcast 23 innings in one day in two different cities.

Laryngitis prevented Scully from calling Game 2 of the 1989 National League Championship Series between the San Francisco Giants and Chicago Cubs. Bob Costas, who was working the American League Championship Series between Oakland and Toronto with Tony Kubek for NBC, was flown from Toronto to Chicago to fill in that evening (an off day for the ALCS). The final Major League Baseball game that Scully called for NBC was Game 5 of the 1989 NLCS on October 9. There, the Giants led by first baseman Will Clark clinched their first National League pennant since 1962.

After the 1989 season, NBC (along with ABC, with whom NBC had shared baseball coverage since 1976), lost the television rights to cover Major League Baseball to CBS. For the first time since 1946, NBC would not televise baseball. In the aftermath, Scully said of NBC losing baseball, "It's a passing of a great American tradition. It is sad. I really and truly feel that. It will leave a vast window, to use a Washington word, where people will not get Major League Baseball and I think that's a tragedy. ... It's a staple that's gone. I feel for people who come to me and say how they miss it and, I hope, me."

Scully also served as an announcer for NBC's PGA Tour golf coverage during his time at the network, usually teaming with Lee Trevino.

1990"present (post NBC)

After the National League Championship Series in 1989, Scully's NBC contract was up and he left to focus primarily on his duties with the Dodgers. Scully also returned to being the national radio announcer for the World Series, since CBS Radio gave him the position that Jack Buck had vacated in order to become the primary announcer of CBS-TV coverage of Major League Baseball. Scully's first assignment was the 1990 World Series and he remained in that role until 1997 working with Johnny Bench for the first four years and Jeff Torborg for the final three. After ESPN Radio acquired the World Series radio rights from CBS in 1998, Scully was offered a continued play-by-play role but he declined, saying, "It's been great, I loved it, but free time is better than sitting in Cleveland saying, 'Why am I here?'" Instead, ESPN Radio used Sunday Night Baseball television play-by-play man Jon Miller for their World Series coverage for the next thirteen years.

From 1991 to 1996, Scully broadcast the annual Skins Game for ABC, having previously called the event for NBC from 1983 to 1989. He also called the Senior Skins Game for ABC from 1992 to 2000, as well as various golf events for TBS during this period. In 1999, Scully was the master of ceremonies for MasterCard's Major League Baseball All-Century Team before the start of Game 2 of the World Series. Also in 1999, Scully appeared in the movie For Love of the Game.

The Dodgers management announced in February 2006 that it had extended Scully's contract through the 2008 baseball season for about $3 million per year. In recent years (more specifically, beginning around 2005), Scully has cut back his work schedule to approximately 110 games a year, with the first three innings via a radio and TV simulcast, and the remainder exclusively on TV. Scully normally does not work non-playoff games played east of Denver. Exceptions to this rule were the 2007 opening series in Milwaukee, a series against the Chicago Cubs in 2007, and a series against the Boston Red Sox in 2010. He is not normally scheduled to announce Dodgers games (on either radio or TV) if ESPN is televising it for Sunday Night Baseball or if Fox is showing it on a Saturday afternoon.

As of the 2013 season, Scully calls roughly 100 games per season (all home games and road games in California and Arizona) for both flagship radio station KLAC and television outlets KCAL-TV and Fox Sports West and Prime Ticket. Scully is simulcast for the first three innings of each of his appearances, then announces the remaining innings only for the TV audience. If Scully is calling the game, Charley Steiner takes over play-by-play on radio beginning with the fourth inning, with Rick Monday as color commentator. If Scully is not calling the game, Eric Collins and Steve Lyons call the entire game on television while Steiner and Monday do the same on radio.

In the event the Dodgers are in postseason play, Scully calls the first three and last three innings of the radio broadcast alone; with Charley Steiner and Rick Monday handling the middle innings. Scully missed most of the Dodgers' opening home stand of the 2012 MLB season (the first five out of six games) because of an illness. Scully returned to the announcers' booth on April 15, 2012, which was the 65th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier in baseball. It was just the second time in 35 years the legendary sports broadcaster had missed a Dodger Stadium home opener: The first time was when he was busy broadcasting the Masters golf tournament for CBS in 1977.

On August 23, 2013, the Dodgers announced that Scully would return to the booth in 2014 for his 65th season as the team's broadcaster.

Memorable calls

• Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series between the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers on October 8, 1956:

• Sandy Koufax's perfect game on September 9, 1965:

• Hank Aaron's 715th home run on April 8, 1974:

• Rick Monday's rescue of the American flag from a pair of protesters attempting to burn it on April 25, 1976.
• Ozzie Smith's walk off homer off in Game 5 of the 1985 National League Championship Series:

• Bill Buckner's muffed ground ball in the 1986 World Series between the New York Mets and Boston Red Sox on October 25, 1986:

• Cincinnati Red Tom Browning's perfect game against the Dodgers on September 16, 1988.
• Kirk Gibson's dramatic home run in Game 1 of the World Series between the Dodgers and the Oakland Athletics on October 15, 1988 -
• Will Clark's National League pennant clinching base hit off of Mitch Williams in Game 5 of the 1989 National League Championship Series between the San Francisco Giants and Chicago Cubs:

• Fernando Valenzuela's no-hitter on June 29, 1990 against the St. Louis Cardinals.
• Montreal Expo Dennis Martínez's perfect game against the Dodgers on June 28, 1991.
• Hideo Nomo's no hitter on September 17, 1996, the first no-hitter thrown by a Japanese born pitcher.
• The Dodgers' four consecutive home runs against the San Diego Padres on September 18, 2006.

Other appearances

In 1970, ABC Sports producer Roone Arledge tried to lure Scully to his network to call play-by-play for the then-new Monday Night Football games, but Scully's commitment to the Dodgers forced him to reject the offer. Instead, the role went to Keith Jackson for the initial year, before being replaced by Frank Gifford (from 1971"1985, when Gifford was in return, replaced by Al Michaels while Gifford converted into a color commentator up until 1997).

Besides his sportscasting work, Scully was the uncredited narrator for the short-lived NBC sitcom Occasional Wife. Scully also co-hosted the Tournament of Roses Parade with Elizabeth Montgomery for ABC in 1967, served as the host for the NBC game show It Takes Two in 1969"70, and in 1973 hosted The Vin Scully Show, a weekday afternoon talk-variety show on CBS. In 1977, he hosted the prime-time Challenge of the Sexes for CBS.

Scully was the announcer in the popular Sony PlayStation"exclusive MLB video game series by 989 Sports for a number of years. Scully has since retired from announcing for video games, with his final year involving the video game MLB 2005. Dave Campbell and Matt Vasgersian have since taken over as the lead announcers in the video game series, which was retitled MLB: The Show.

Scully appeared as himself in the 1999 film For Love of the Game (as previously mentioned), and his voice can be heard calling baseball games in the films Bachelor in Paradise (1961), Experiment in Terror (1962), and The Party (1968), as well as in episodes of TV series including Mister Ed, The Joey Bishop Show, The Fugitive, Highway to Heaven, and Brooklyn Bridge. The surname of the "Dana Scully" character on the television show The X-Files is an homage to Scully, as the show's creator Chris Carter is a Dodgers fan; Scully himself can be heard calling a game in the season 6 episode "The Unnatural".

Impersonators

Harry Shearer does an impersonation of Scully on The Simpsons as the Gabbo puppet character, and also uses it when the storyline includes the fictional team of the Springfield Isotopes. San Francisco Giants and Hall of Fame broadcaster Jon Miller is noted in baseball circles for his dead-on impersonation of Scully. Dan Bernstein, co-host of the Boers and Bernstein show on Chicago's WSCR radio station, does an impersonation of Scully often when the word "Dodgers" is said on the air.

Awards and honors

Scully received the Ford Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982, and was honored with a Life Achievement Emmy Award for sportscasting and induction into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1995. The National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association has named Scully as National Sportscaster of the Year three times (1965, 1978, 1982) and California Sportscaster of the Year 29 times, and inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 1991. He was the 1992 Hall of Fame inductee of the American Sportscasters Association, which also named him Sportscaster of the Century (2000) and top sportscaster of all-time on its Top 50 list (2009). The California Sports Hall of Fame inducted Scully in 2008. Scully was inducted into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2009. On May 11, 2009, he was awarded the Ambassador Award of Excellence by the LA Sports & Entertainment Commission. On an episode of MLB Network's series Prime 9 about the nine greatest baseball broadcasters of all-time, Scully was named #1 (followed in order by: Mel Allen, Red Barber, Jack Buck, Ernie Harwell, Harry Kalas, Harry Caray, Phil Rizzuto and Curt Gowdy).

Scully has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6675 Hollywood Blvd. Since 2001, the press box at Dodger Stadium has been named for Scully, and a street near the team's former Dodgertown spring training facility in Vero Beach, Florida was named "Vin Scully Way".

In September 2013, Scully was named Grand Marshal for the 2014 Tournament of Roses Parade.

Personal life and tragedy

Scully has endured a pair of personal tragedies in his life. In 1972, his 35-year-old wife, Joan Crawford, died of an accidental medical overdose. Scully was suddenly a widowed father of three after 15 years of marriage. In late 1973, he married Sandra Schaefer, who had two children of her own, and they soon had a child together. Scully's eldest son, Michael, died in a helicopter crash at the age of 33 while working for the ARCO Transportation Company. He was inspecting oil pipelines for leaks near Fort Tejon, California in the immediate aftermath of the Northridge earthquake in January 1994. Although Michael's death still haunts him, Scully, a devout Roman Catholic, said (while being interviewed by Bryant Gumbel on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel in July 2005) that he credits his faith and being able to dive back into his work with helping him ease the burden and grief.

The first biography of Scully's life, Pull Up a Chair: The Vin Scully Story, written by Curt Smith, was published in 2009.

For many years, Scully reportedly did not attend (or even watch on TV) a baseball game he was not announcing. It was not until 2004, when he and then-Dodgers owner Frank McCourt attended a game at Fenway Park, that Scully went to a pro baseball game as a spectator. Scully and McCourt took in another game at Fenway in 2010.

See also