Broadcasting legend Vin Scully has passed away today at the age of 94, according to a Dodgers press release. “He was the voice of the Dodgers and so much more. He was her conscience, her Poet Laureate, capturing her beauty and chronicling her fame, from Jackie Robinson to Sandy Koufax, from Kirk Gibson to Clayton Kershaw. Vin Scully was the heartbeat of the Dodgers — and in many ways the heartbeat of all of Los Angeles,” the publication reads.
For all of the legendary voices that have rocked baseball games over the decades, there’s little debate that Scully was best of all, both for the incredible length of his tenure in the dressing room and for his unmatched quality over those 66 years broadcasting Dodgers games. Amazingly, even alongside his work with the Dodgers, Scully was already a Hall of Fame broadcaster, covering the NFL, pro golf, tennis, and (of course) postseason and All-Star baseball games for networks like CBS. NBC, ABC and TBS.
From beginning to end of his iconic career, Scully was a master storyteller, endlessly finding inventive and poetic ways to tell the action without overwhelming the game on the pitch. Scully has been on the mic for many of the greatest moments in baseball history, adding both beautiful calls and (equally important) poignant silences to those moments.
Scully was something of a child prodigy, having started announcing Dodgers games in Brooklyn on both television and radio fairly early in his career in 1950. He was then in the dressing room until the end of the 2016 season, following the Dodgers to Los Angeles. As noted in the press release, “It was Vin, like everyone else, who connected the franchise to his new city. Fans—not only across the city, but at the games themselves at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum—heard Vin and fellow Jerry Doggett over their new transistor radios.”
On behalf of all of us at MLBTR, we offer our condolences to Vin Scully’s family and legions of friends and fans.