A fond farewell to Vin Scully

Oh no, not again.

Anyone with grandparents knows the familiar situation where the generation gap becomes a little too wide, and the senior member of the conversation brings up those four words that usually result in a heavy eye roll.

“Back in my day.”

Yes, there is something to be learned about the past, and how we as humanity have gotten to where we have. But after about a million times, those four words hit the younger generation like a Cadillac filled to the brim with hard candy.

Except when it was Vin Scully.

The longtime Dodger broadcaster has had a legendary career calling some of the most memorable moments in Major League Baseball. However, what Scully brought to Los Angeles Dodger fans and baseball junkies across the country extended far beyond the field.

Any broadcaster can go in a booth and call out what’s happening on the field, but no one is able to weave into a game the level of history and personal stories of those players on the field quite like Scully.

Hearing one of his broadcasts was a work of art. Not only was he telling the story of the field in such detail, he filled in the time with impeccably relevant historical references to the game. In one moment he’ll be talking about Derek Jeter and then transition to talking about short-lived Dodger utility man Tom Wilson and how they shared a minor league locker room in 1993 in Greensboro, North Carolina, all while still calling the game in front of him.

Scully believed that sports were a people industry, not a numbers one. Baseball has been wrapped up in data and analytics so long that it is easy to forget that people and their stories actually drive the sport.

It is these stories that really captured the heart of his listeners and viewers, especially on the television side. The audience can see what’s happening, so they’re looking for something to enrich their viewing experience. The level of knowledge that Scully had has enabled him to have a story for every situation. That is the kind of insight that has rocketed him to beloved status in southern California.

Nothing was more evident of that after watching his last home broadcast on September 25, 2016. One batter after the other looked to Scully’s perch in Dodger Stadium, and tipped their cap for one last time. Even after Los Angeles won the game in walk-off fashion to clinch the division title, it was Scully whom was center stage getting a standing ovation for the last time in Chavez Ravine.

Not that it comes as a big surprise. In Los Angeles, Scully is baseball.

For a franchise with such a rich history, that is saying a lot. Sandy Koufax spent nine years in Los Angeles, Don Drysdale spent 12 years in the City of Angels and Ron Cey also spent two-dozen years wearing the Dodger Blue in L.A.

Vin Scully has been in the Dodger organization for 67 years.

In that time, two versions of the “Manchurian Candidate” were released 42 years apart, Michael Jordan retired three times and seven Star Wars movies were produced. Yet, here he stands just excited about the game as he was when he started his broadcasting career as the youngest broadcaster to call a World Series game in 1953.

From four-legged radios to the color of the television screen, he has been the introduction and voice of baseball. There are literally generations of baseball fans that have grown up and grown old listening to him call major league games. That kind of longevity allowed Scully and his silky smooth delivery to accompany every big moment in Dodger history since 1953, forever linking him to every major milestone in Los Angeles lore.

Not many people can say that they witnessed Sandy Koufax’s perfect game, and Kirk Gibson’s no-legged World Series walk-off home run. Broadcasting one of those events would’ve been a career moment. Scully was able to make both of those calls.

Inevitably, change comes in life but Scully was the constant comfort for many people. Famously, blues singer Ray Charles met with him once and told him that he saved his life when he was going through the most depressing time of his life. The images of baseball meant nothing to Charles, but listening to Scully was musical to him, and kept him going when things seemed so bleak.

But as much as he may have been there for us when we needed something to distract us, we have been there for him just as much. We were there when he lost his first wife to an accidental medical overdose. We were there when he lost his son in a helicopter crash after the Northridge earthquake in 1994. Fans found comfort in him, so it was no surprise that he found comfort in them.

And he did find comfort.

Time and time again, Scully has said that the fans were the wind beneath his wings, taking him higher than he ever thought possible. He may have been the lone voice in the booth for 67 years, but he was always joined by thousands of fans in the stands and millions of fans in spirit.

He always felt more like a relative than a broadcaster, sharing intimate knowledge of the game that our parents or grandparents would impart rather than a media professional. That is why fans look at him as an old friend, talking with you rather than to you.

When he regales fans with tales of baseballs past, they don’t shutdown and tune him out. They listen because they don’t know when they will hear another storyteller quite like him.

So from fans of the Dodgers, fans of baseball, and, heck, fans of humanity, we wish Vin Scully a very pleasant retirement, wherever he may be.