Just before 7 p.m. tonight, Dodger fans will hear a voice they’ve heard thousands of times before.

“Hi, everybody. And a very pleasant good evening to you, wherever you may be.”

The soothing voice of Vincent Scully will flow over the airwaves yet again. Since 1950, Dodger fans have tuned in to hear that melodic voice call balls and strikes, weave a yarn like the seams on a baseball, and make everyone feel at home with their team. But finally, Sunday, Oct. 2 will mark the end of the most impressive career in sports broadcasting history. After 67 seasons, the team’s fabled announcer is hanging up his microphone, and the voice that is as crucial to baseball as extra innings, hot dogs and playing catch with your dad, will be missed.

Scully’s play-by-play aspirations started well before his time with the Dodgers, back to when he played stickball as a kid in the Bronx. As early as age 8, he remembers wanting to announce sports games.

“In my school, most of my classmates wanted to be policeman or fireman,” Scully told the Beverly Press. “But this redheaded kid wanted to be an announcer.”

That was surprising, he explained, because sports were not broadcasted nearly as much as they are today, except for college football games on Saturdays. And on those days, Scully remembers taking a pillow and crawling under the radio.

“My head would be directly under the loud speaker,” he said. “And I was enthralled, not by the game, but by the roar of the crowd. It would wash over me like water coming out of a showerhead. Each week, I would look forward to hearing the crowd. Then I started to dream that I would be in the crowd. Then I started to think, ‘I wish I was the announcer.’”

He set his path early and didn’t deviate. After his time announcing games for the Fordham University Rams, his career went on a fast track. He was recruited by fellow redhead and broadcast legend, Walter “Red” Barber to cover college football games for CBS. Scully continued to impress Barber, and in 1950 Scully joined Barber and Connie Desmond in the Brooklyn Dodgers broadcast booth. Barber mentored Scully, who continues to use the advice he received today. For example, Scully doesn’t listen to other announcers call games, per Red’s advice.

“Red Barber told me when I was first starting, ‘You bring something into the booth that no one else brings in – yourself. There’s no one else in this world exactly like you. You must learn to be you.’”

Scully explained there can be a temptation for announcers to copy or to try to call games better than other play-by-play people. But if announcers give into the temptation then they won’t be original, and instead they become a mix of what they’ve seen or heard.

“Then you’ve lost what you bring to the group,” Scully said. “Don’t let anybody else change you. That’s the toughest thing to do – not to listen to successful announcers. As Red said, ‘Stick to you.’”

Walter “Red” Barber hired Vin Scully and invited him to join the Dodgers in 1950. Scully said Barber was his mentor, and he uses the advice he received to this day.­
(courtesy of the Los Angeles Dodgers)

During the 1953 World Series between the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers – a series that included Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Phil Rizutto and Pee Wee Reese – Barber found himself in a contract dispute with sponsor Gillette. He decided to sit the series out, and Scully became the youngest person to announce a World Series at age 25 – a record that stands today.

“I was scared to death,” Scully said. “The morning of the first game I had a typical breakfast made by my Irish mother and I was fine and I went upstairs to get dressed and threw everything up.”

When Scully arrived at the ballpark and heard the sound of the players’ bats hitting the baseballs, his nerves calmed enough to call the game. After the series, he said he felt like he “just avoided a car crash.” But Barber left the organization after that year and the Dodgers had a new lead announcer with Scully.

Scully quickly became exposed to storied characters like Dodger manager Walter “Smokey” Alston, who Scully said was a great leader of men, and Branch Rickey who helped break the color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson. And when Jackie stole home in the 1955 World Series – one of the most iconic and most reviewed plays in MLB history – Scully was there to call it (and said Robinson was safe at the plate, at least from his perspective.)

He slowly became more comfortable and confident in his first few years, but he was still cautious, especially after the Dodgers’ owners decided to move the team across the country to Los Angeles. At first, it was questionable whether Scully would be offered the job in the new city. He was thrilled and relieved when owner Walter O’Malley decided to keep him as the voice of the team, but the move was still bittersweet.

“At the same time it was sadness to leave after I felt like I was reasonably established,” he said. “I felt like I was accepted, but now I’m leaving everyone I knew and grew up with and I was going to start all over again and hope to get accepted in Los Angeles.”

It turned out “accepted” would be an understatement.

Ebbets Field in Brooklyn held 34,000 people. The Coliseum in Los Angeles, where the Dodgers moved in 1958, was built for track and football and housed 93,000 fans. That ended up being the perfect scenario for what Scully called the “luckiest thing in the whole world.”

The emergence of the transistor radio became the kick-starter for Scully’s strong relationship with the fans. It put Scully’s voice in the ears of the people watching the game in the 79th row at the Coliseum. Scully explained that fans knew the famous baseball players’ names, but they didn’t know the “rank and file” players. He always did his research and transistor radios allowed him to keep fans’ attention by teaching them about the stars of the game and the lesser-known players.

“That was the single biggest break to bring me and Jerry (Doggett) closer to the population of Southern California,” Scully said.

He learned how connected he was with crowds during a game in 1960 when he realized it one of the four umpires’ birthday.

“And I said to the people in the ballpark, ‘Wouldn’t it be something with this big crowd, if we could sing Happy Birthday to the umpire. I mean, it’s never been done and it will forever go in the history books.’ So I said, ‘When I come out of commercial, we’ll sing or holler, ‘Happy birthday Frank!’”

Scully came back from commercial and counted down three, two, one …

“And the whole ball park goes, “Happy birthday, Frank!” Scully exclaimed. “The umpire almost fainted.”

Scully and the Dodgers quickly became favorites in Los Angeles as he took new fans on a ride through their new team’s World Series victory over the Chicago White Sox. On Oct. 6, 1959, approximately 92,706 fans attended Game 5 at Memorial Coliseum.

The Dodgers moved to Dodger Stadium in 1962 and Scully said he realized he had found where he belonged.

“I would say I’m an Angeleno,” the Bronx native said.

Scully announced national games, playoff games and even had experience in other sports, announcing NFL games and PGA tournaments. Every year, Scully’s relationship grew stronger with baseball fans as his voiced filled living rooms throughout Los Angeles and the country.

He talked about the 1963 and 1965 World Series teams that included Dodger greats like Maury Wills, Jim Gilliam, Wes Parker and Tommy Davis, that Scully said won with speed, defense and great pitching. Then in the 1970s, Scully and Dodger fans boasted one of the best and longest-running group of infielders with Ron “the Penguin” Cey at 3rd base, Bill Russell at shortstop, Davey Lopes at 2nd and Steve Garvey at 1st.

“It was quite an accomplishment to keep four players together for so long,” Scully said. “They were four outstanding players, who worked very hard and were very dedicated.”

Scully has been so well-liked that Dodger fans voted him the “most memorable personality” in Los Angeles Dodger history. And that was 40 years ago.

In a profession that calls for additional chatter and color, part of Scully’s trademark is to do the opposite – he shuts up. After walk-off home runs or hinge moment strikeouts – when most announcers deliver a trademark one-liner or poetic sentence – Scully lets the crowd do the work of describing to the audience at home how special the big plays are.

“As soon as the play is accomplished, I shut up and let that crowd roar. And I sit there listening to that crowd, and believe me, I’m that 8-year-old kid underneath that radio, just relishing in the roar of the crowd,” Scully said.

He was calling the game in Atlanta when Hank Aaron hit the record-setting 715th home run to pass Babe Ruth – still considered by many to be the true home run record – and Scully really let the silence ride.

“One ball and no strikes. Aaron waiting. The outfield deep and straightaway. Fastball. IT’S A DEEP FLY BALL TO DEEP LEFT-CENTERFIELD, BUCKNER GOES BACK, TO THE FENCE, IT IS GONE!”

After “gone,” Scully waited more than an entire minute-and-a-half – an eternity to anyone in broadcasting – before he spoke again.

“I took the headset off, got up, went to the back, got some water and just let the crowd roar,” he said. “It might have been the longest wait on radio.”

Finally, Scully sat down, and put the moment into perspective.

“What a marvelous moment for baseball,” he said after the silence. “What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the deep South for breaking a record of a long-time baseball idol.”

Scully said it became sociologically one of the greatest moments in American sports.

Scully used the silent treatment throughout his career, except for one special exception that every Dodger fan knows.

When Kirk Gibson hit that pinch hit home run in the 1988 World Series, Scully couldn’t help himself and he gave us those genuine words: “In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened!”

Earlier this year on a February night, Scully received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the L.A. Sports Awards ceremony. While the recipient list included names like Blake Griffin and the guest list included Mayor Eric Garcetti, the crowd was there to see Vin.

After several standing ovations and more laughs than President Obama gets during a White House Correspondents dinner, Scully had one more thing to say. He just spent 20 minutes telling stories about his playing career in college, his all-time favorite players and most memorable moments to a packed ballroom at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. He accepted his award and tried to speak over the cacophony of the exiting audience, but the microphone was turned off because most thought the show was over.

Finally the humble man got to the podium and everyone turned around.

Scully gets the crowd’s attention in February after receiving a
Lifetime Achievement award from the Los Angeles Sports Council.
(photo by Gregory Cornfield)

“I just had one other thing to say, and I have thought about it for a while,” he said. “It’s simply this: The award is a ‘Lifetime Achievement’ award, and I gave it thought.

“‘Lifetime’ is not in my hands. It’s God’s will how long my life will be. So I had nothing to do with ‘Lifetime.’ And then I looked at lifetime ‘Achievement.’ Well sure, if you read my biography, they will tell you that, ‘he broadcast 25 no-hitters, 8,000 home runs, three perfect games.’ But it wasn’t my achievement. I mean, I was fortunate to be there, but I didn’t pitch a no-hitter. I didn’t hit a home run. All of a sudden, the award is a little different.

“We all can’t be heroes. Most of us have to stand at the curb and cheer as they go by. For 67 years, thank God, that’s what I’ve been blessed to be. I’ve been that man on the curb applauding as the heroes went by.”

Per usual, everything Scully said was correct. He never pitched a no-hitter. But that doesn’t mean he can get away with downplaying his part.

Scully has been there during the good and bad seasons, and during the good and bad times for the city. He was there while kids were growing up, and he brought with him each perfect game, great play and big hit. Every memory would have to include his words painting the picture. Those times we were with our parents and siblings and best friends in the living room during Fourth-of-July day games, or for the night playoff games in October, Vin was there.

“Vin, you are Dodger baseball. In many ways it’s your voice that narrated my childhood – the highs, the lows, the big plays that marked the summertime in Los Angeles,” Mayor Garcetti said. “Your legacy reminds each one of us in this town that sports have the capacity to be emblematic of something much larger than one game or one season.”

Beyond the fact that Scully has become a friend of the family to Angelenos without ever meeting most of them, it still can’t be overstated how legendary Scully is to the game of baseball. For evidence, look at what baseball fans love most – his statistics. But forget your baseball record books. In 2013, Scully’s name was added to the Guinness Book of World Records for becoming the longest tenured announcer with one team. Scully has also called more than 10,000 regular season games for the Dodgers alone. That doesn’t include preseason games, post-season games, All Star Games, or games he announced nationally that didn’t include the Dodgers. That’s three times as many games as Tommy Lasorda managed. Since the Dodgers played their first inning at Memorial Coliseum in 1958, no name has been as timeless to Los Angeles sports as Vincent Scully’s.

From the Coliseum to Kirk Gibson’s home run to his 67th season in the booth this year, Scully’s perpetual voice has reached more ears than any broadcaster in history and connected with more fans than any athlete ever could. He has been there every summer, and he has always been Vin Scully.

“What you hear coming out is straight me, no imitation,” he said.

While Scully will not be calling any postseason games, it looks like the Dodgers are headed for the playoffs. Perhaps they can go all they way and win it for Vinny, whose voice will forever be a part of sports history as the narrator of summer – for Los Angeles, for the Dodgers, and for their fans.