Vin Scully refutes the idea that he’ll retire after next season

Slow breaths now, find you inner calm, think gentle breezes through the pines.

Vin Scully has not announced next season will be his last.

Which doesn’t mean it might not be, but that’s the same as it’s been for several years now. Scully, 85, said he will do his annual evaluation next summer and determine if he wants to come back for another year.

“I look at each year as possibly my last,” Scully said. “Next year will be no different. It all boils down to come July or August, how I feel physically. I’ll look at how many mistakes I’ve made and if they’re coming for me yet, and how I feel.”

The legendary broadcaster has already agreed to return for a record 65th season next spring, but in a recent interview with KPCC he sounded like next year could be his last.

“I wasn’t making a declaration,” Scully said. “I guess it was misconstrued. Each year is my last, until the next one. I never say yes or no.”

And while I had him on the phone, I had to give him opportunity to respond to an earlier post I wrote, urging him to permit Los Angeles to name a street after him around Dodger Stadium.

Fearing he would ask me not to write it, I had intentionally not reached out to him then. His reaction has not changed. He would like to see the city honor Walter O’Malley, the owner who moved the Dodgers to Los Angeles.

“It seems like people have forgotten,” Scully said. “What he’s done is much more deserving. He’s the one who came out on a gamble, who played in the Coliseum with that [left-field] screen to the scorn of Eastern writers, who built Dodger Stadium.

“He really deserves it. Just think of all the city and tax dollars generated, all the jobs.

“This is not me being humble at another award. I would really like to see something done in his honor.”

For more from Scully, here’s a great Q&A with the Daily News’ Tom Hoffarth, that includes a surprising choice as one of the most significant home runs he’s ever seen and some frank thoughts on Sen. John McCain blasting the Dodgers their celebratory pool party.