Vin Scully : In 36 Years as Voice of the Dodgers, He’s Never Been at Loss for Words

The Vin Scully Show, now embarking on its 36th year with the Dodgers, rolls on and on, with each new reviewer gushing more than the last. Fifty-seven summers aren’t much betrayed in his ruddy-red Irish face. Neither is the sadness when he smiles, which, by nature and by design, is practically always.

Yeah, even Vin Scully, master-weaver of high drama and happy endings, has his sadnesses. But sorrow makes for lousy theater--on the air and off--and if there is one thing Scully can’t stand it’s lousy theater.

“I’m the great cover-up,” Scully says. “I don’t talk about my sadness. I guess the psychiatrists might say that I need to purge myself of that. But I can’t. I’d rather tell them a joke. I have to do it my way. I can’t allow the sadness to lead me on.”

And so, the show leads him on. The most transfixing, regaling, entertaining show in baseball carries elegantly on.

For that, baseball fans must be forever indebted. Not, of course, as forever indebted as Dodger President Peter O’Malley, who shells out an estimated $750,000 per year for a man who is, essentially, a part-time employee. O’Malley at least has company. The bookkeeper at NBC pays Scully approximately the same size stipend to work the “Game of the Week” and six golf tournaments a year. That’s $1.5 million a year, with winters off and no heavy lifting.

After 36 years, Vinnie has become everybody’s friend. Does Los Angeles love Vinnie? Does Lasorda bleed white clam sauce?

Or, as a Mr. G.G. Gundry of Malibu writes in: “If Vin Scully announced lawn bowing, I would listen.”

No, Vinnie doesn’t do the Dodgers. Vinnie is the Dodgers--more than Lasorda or Sax or, yeah, even Mr. Potato Head. Vinnie has that certain papal infallibility about him. As Lasorda himself once put it: “Davey Lopes hits a line drive off the wall, comes flying around second and slides head-first into third and not one person in the stadium believes it until Vinnie tells them it’s true.”

This is not much of an exaggeration, even for Lasorda. Scully may be the single-largest influence on transistor radio sales in Los Angeles. In fact, so many people pack a radio to Dodger games that KABC engineers often have to adjust for the noise of Vinnie’s voice cascading up from the stands into the booth.

All those people hanging on every word can be intimidating. “It’s strange knowing that thousands of people are listening to you describe a play they are watching,” Scully says, but Scully says he’s never had a letter from somebody who was there saying he got it wrong.

And transistor power can be good for kicks, too. Once, during a particularly dull game in 1960, Scully noticed in the press guide that one of the day’s umpires, Frank Secory, was celebrating a birthday.

Vinnie thought it would be fun if everybody listening in the stands paid the man in blue a tribute. “I’ll count to three,” Scully said, “and everybody yell, ‘Happy Birthday, Frank!’ ”

One, two, three . . . counted Scully.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FRANK!” roared thousands.

Secory’s face looked as if he’d just been buzzed by a 727. The crowd giggled with delight, eminently pleased with their little game and its instigator, Scully.

All of which goes to show you that Dodger Stadium is Vinnie’s. Even players from visiting teams worship at Scully’s Shrine. One was Cincinnati Reds’ reliever George Culver, who would no sooner take his seat in the bullpen without his transistor than he would without his glove. One night, the Reds had a pitcher warming up in the bullpen but Scully’s view was blocked. Scully knew George listened, so he said over the air, “Hey, George, if that’s Granger warming up, give us a wave.”

Culver waved.

“Thanks, George,” Scully said.

Scully can get away with that stuff. He is as comfortable as your favorite college sweat shirt. Flip on the car radio and you can almost see him riding shotgun, swapping stories, affecting no pretensions or style except the simple feel of himself. It is for that reason Scully never-- never-- listens to other broadcasters. Scully doesn’t want to be Marv Albert or Lindsey Nelson or Joe Piscopo. Scully just wants to be Scully.

Scully appeals to the truck driver and the English lit professor alike. He knows his way around homers and Homer, Shakespeare and stickball. If Scully says an errant shortstop is like “The Ancient Mariner--he stoppeth one of three,” one minute, then the next he’s describing a change-up that “squirts out like a wet bar of soap.”

Los Angeles has lapped it up since 1958, when the Dodgers came to town with Scully running interference. He turned Los Angeles into a transistor town, first and forever. Forget video, from April to October for 27 years, Scully’s mellifluous musings have drifted up from every traffic jam and outdoor cafe, every limousine and ice cream truck. The portable Vinnie. Unless, of course, he’s doing the TV broadcast on Channel 11. Then it’s VinnieVision.

Fans respect Vinnie, because Vinnie respects the fans. Vinnie does not scream at you. Vinnie does not numb you with numbers. Vinnie does not try to impress you. You’ll never hear Vinnie giving it the big Hollywood High Five in the booth, as in:

Well, what do you know? Look who just dropped by the old homestead . If it isn’t Bobby. Folks, say hello to Bobby De Niro . Nor will Vinnie rail at umpires, root for the home team (Cub fans shudder here), or rag the visitors. And, most of all, Vinnie will give you nothing when nothing will do just fine.

When Henry Aaron was one home run away from hitting his 715th and breaking Babe Ruth’s record, it so happened that the Dodgers were in Atlanta for the game. Al Downing was on the mound for the Dodgers and Scully was at the mike.

When that most celebrated of fly balls cleared the fence, Scully barked, “It’s gone!,” then did a curious thing. He motioned for the engineer to open up the crowd microphone, rose from his chair, walked to the back of the broadcasting booth, poured himself a glass of water and drank it.

Slowly.

The roar lasted more than two minutes and those two minutes got along just fine without anybody having to add insightful commentary such as: I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it!

To some, Scully’s call, or lack thereof, was pure genius, but to Scully it was child’s play. “I remember, when I was growing up, we had one of those huge, old radios at home that sat high enough off the ground so that I was able to crawl up under it, actually under it,” Scully says.

“I’d sit under there for hours with a box of Saltines and a carton of milk and listen to guys like Ted Husing and Bill Stern do college football. Games like Georgia Tech-Navy, Mississippi-Mississippi State, which I should not have cared the least about, but was enthralled with. It didn’t matter to me. I used to just love to hear the roar of the crowd wash over me. And I knew if I ever got the chance to broadcast, I’d let the crowd be the big thing.”

When the Dodgers won the 1959 pennant, Scully’s classy line is remembered, perhaps even more than the feat he described: “We go to Chicago.”

When Scully’s favorite Dodger team won the first and last pennant for Flatbush in 1955 and then went on to win the World Series, Scully still kept his cool: “Ladies and gentlemen, the Brooklyn Dodgers are the champions of the world.” Later, people would ask Scully how he remained so calm. “If I’d said another word, I’d have broken down crying,” he would say.

If knowing when to swallow words is an art, knowing how to release them is a gift. They say radio is like skywriting. The words, once spoken, merely float away to the winds, lost forever. But only Scully can still the sky.

Like this:

Three times in his sensational career has Sandy Koufax walked out to the mound to pitch a fateful ninth when he turned in a no-hitter. But tonight, September 9th, 1965, he made the toughest walk of his career, I’m sure, because through eight innings he has pitched a perfect game. He has struck out 11, has retired 24 consecutive batters. And the first man he will look at is catcher Chris Krug--big, right-handed hitter--flied to center, grounded to short. Dick Tracewski is now at second base; and Koufax ready--and delivers: curveball for a strike--0-and-1 count to Chris Krug. Out on deck to pinch-hit is one of the men we mentioned as a ‘possible’: Joe Amalfitano. Here’s the strike-one pitch: fastball, swung on and missed, strike two. And you can almost taste the pressure now. Koufax lifted his cap, ran his fingers through his black hair, and pulled the cap back down, fussing at the bill. Krug must feel it too, as he backs out, heaves a sigh, took off his helmet, put it back on, and steps back up to the plate. Tracewski is over to his right to fill up the middle. Kennedy is deep to guard the line. The strike-two pitch on the way: fastball outside, ball one. Krug started to go after it but held up, and Torborg held the ball high in the air trying to convince Vargo, but Eddy said: ‘No, sir.’ One-and-two the count to Chris Krug. It is 9:41 P.M. on September the 9th. The 1-2 pitch on the way: curveball tapped foul off to the left of the plate. The Dodgers defensively in this spine-tingling moment: Sandy Koufax and Jeff Torborg--the boys who will try to stop anything hit their way: Wes Parker, Dick Tracewski, Maury Wills and John Kennedy--the outfield of Lou Johnson, Willie Davis and Ron Fairly. There are 29,000 people in the ballpark and a million butterflies; 29,139 paid. Koufax into his windup and the 1-2 pitch: fastball, fouled back out of play. In the Dodger dugout Al Ferrara gets up and walks down near the runway and it begins to get tough to be a teammate and sit in the dugout and have to watch. Sandy back of the rubber now, toes it. All the boys in the bullpen straining to get a better look as they look through the wire fence in left field. One-and-two the count to Chris Krug. Koufax, feet together, now to his windup, and the 1-2 pitch--ball, outside, ball two. (The crowd boos.) A lot of people in the ball park now are starting to see the pitches with their hearts. The pitch was outside. Torborg tried to pull it in over the plate, but Vargo, an experienced umpire, wouldn’t go for it. Two-and-two the count to Chris Krug. Sandy reading signs. Into his windup, 2-2 pitch: fastball got him swinging! Sandy Koufax has struck out 12. He is two outs away from a perfect game. Here is Joe Amalfitano to pinch-hit for Don Kessinger. Amalfitano is from Southern California, from San Pedro. He was an original bonus boy with the Giants. Joey’s been around, and as we mentioned earlier, he has helped to beat the Dodgers twice. And on deck is Harvey Kuenn. Kennedy is tight to the bag at third. The fastball for a strike: 0-and-1 with one out in the ninth inning, 1 to 0 Dodgers. Sandy ready, into his windup, and the strike-one pitch: curve ball tapped foul, 0-and-2, and Amalfitano walks away and shakes himself a little bit, and swings the bat. And Koufax, with a new ball, takes a hitch at his belt and walks behind the mound. I would think that the mound at Dodger Stadium right now is the loneliest place in the world. Sandy, fussing, looks in to get his sign; 0-and-2 to Amalfitano--the strike-two pitch to Joe: fast ball, swung on and missed, strike three! He is one out away from the promised land, and Harvey Kuenn is coming up. So Harvey Kuenn is batting for Bob Hendley. The time on the scoreboard is 9:44, the date September the 9th, 1965. And Koufax working on veteran Harvey Kuenn. Sandy into his windup, and the pitch: fastball for a strike. He has struck out, by the way, five consecutive batters, and this has gone unnoticed. Sandy ready, and the strike-one pitch: very high, and he lost his hat. He really forced that one. That was only the second time tonight where I have had the feeling that Sandy threw instead of pitched, trying to get that little extra, and that time he tried so hard his hat fell off. He took an extremely long stride toward the plate, and Torborg had to go up to get it. One-and-one to Harvey Kuenn. Now he’s ready: fastball high, ball two. You can’t blame the man for pushing just a little bit now. Sandy backs off, mops his forehead, runs his left index finger along his forehead, dries it off on his left pants-leg. All the while, Kuenn just waiting. Now Sandy looks in. Into his windup, and the 2-1 pitch to Kuenn: swung on and missed, strike two. It is 9:46 P.M. Two-and-two to Harvey Kuenn--one strike away. Sandy into his windup. Here’s the pitch: swung on and missed, a perfect game! (Long wait as crowd noise takes over.)

On the scoreboard in right field it is 9:46 p.m. in the city of the angels, Los Angeles, California, and a crowd of 29,139 just sitting in to see the only pitcher in baseball history to hurl four no-hit, no-run games. He has done it four straight years, and now he capped it: On his fourth no-hitter, he made it a perfect game. And Sandy Koufax, whose name will always remind you of strikeouts, did it with a flourish. He struck out the last six consecutive batters. So, when he wrote his name in capital letters in the record book, the “K” stands out even more than the “O-U-F-A-X.” --Vin Scully’s call of Sandy Koufax’s perfect game, Sept. 9, 1965 (From The Baseball Reader, Edited by Charles Einstein, McGraw-Hill Paperbacks)

And now we take time out for a quickie Dodger quiz:

Q: This Dodger was voted Most Memorable of all time in a 1976 poll of fans. He was born to immigrant parents in a poor section of a big city, worked his way to national fame, pals around with the President, is usually whistling something or other, is in perpetual mid-story and can sometimes be found saying something like, “Only in a country as great as ours, could a kid from (your hometown here) make it big. . . .”

Can you name him?

If you said Tommy Lasorda, go directly home and watch six straight hours of Chicago Brothers pizza commercials.

If you said Vin Scully, may all your skies be Dodger Blue.

Hard to believe, but Scully, the son of a silk salesman, was born in the Bronx, New York, to humble surroundings.

When Scully was seven years old, his father died of pneumonia and the family moved to a fifth-floor walk-up apartment house in Brooklyn, near the George Washington Bridge. It’s the 181st Street stop if you’re on the subway. His mother later married a reserved, pipe-smoking Englishman who worked as a doorman near Central Park in Manhattan.

“We weren’t real poor, but we weren’t quite middle class, either,” Scully remembers. “I remember my stepfather used to come home sometimes with a pair of pants. One of the tenants at the apartment where he worked would hand him a pair and say, ‘Hey, Al, don’t you have a son these might fit?’ And he’d bring them home to me.”

On Scully’s most lavish Christmas he received a bicycle. “It was stolen in two days,” he said. When Scully eventually made his television debut, his family had to walk down to the neighborhood saloon to witness it. They didn’t own a television.

Ironically, the loquacious Scully almost turned out to be a stutterer. The sisters at his Catholic elementary school believed left-handedness to be a vice cured best by a ruler rap across the knuckles. Scully was a natural left-hander. The strain caused when a natural left-hander is forced to use nothing but his right hand was starting to show up in Scully’s speech pattern--he was starting to stutter.

Eventually, Scully’s mother asked a doctor for help. The doctor sent a note to the sisters explaining to them that if God had wanted young Vincent to favor his right hand, God would have made him right-handed. But since young Vincent most definitely wanted to use his left hand, the sisters must not mess with God’s work. And from that point on, they didn’t.

Scully was never without employment, inglorious as it sometimes was. He delivered the Bronx Home News. He pushed garment racks through Manhattan. He delivered mail. He delivered milk. And, of course, he worked the Silver Room at the Stadler Hotel.

The Silver Room?

One day a man walked up to a group of teen-agers and inquired as to who among them would like to work the Silver Room at the hotel. That sounded pretty glamorous to Scully, so he raised his hand. The Silver Room! Scully could see himself now. Dressed in tails at the maitre d’ stand of the Silver Room. Table for two? Right this way.

“Come with me,” the man said. He took Scully back to a hot, steamy little room where, cascading through a hole in the ceiling, came dirty silverware from the hotel restaurant. The lucky young gentlemen in the Silver Room were granted the distinct privilege to wash it.

Scully eventually went to Fordham Prep, then to Fordham University, where he worked on the school paper, ran the school radio station, wrote stringer stories for the New York Times and played for the Fordham baseball team, for which he contributed a decent center field, swung a fickle bat, but exhibited the best adenoids on the team.

“I remember I’d stand out there and broadcast the games--to myself, although sometimes the priests sitting behind me in the stands would hear me and laugh,” he said. “But I kept right on.”

Which gives us pause. What if Scully the Voice had to introduce Scully the Player?

Now stepping in there, Vince Scully, about a .270 hitter, bats right. A skinny, carrot-topped kid. Appears to be hosting a freckle convention on his face. Just a punch hitter, he likes to whittle away at you. He’s the kind of kid you chuckle at when he comes to the plate, but you look at the box score the next day and you find out he went 2 for 4 against you. On the base paths, he’s nettlesome. Not necessarily fast, but quick. A pretty good fielder, though I can’t see this kid playing much outside the walls of dear ol’ Fordham U.

Which is exactly right. Scully didn’t. He spent two years in the Navy, then came back to Fordham and graduated in 1949. His number was not retired.

That summer Scully got his break. Pressed for a warm body, Red Barber of CBS Radio told his aide to call “that red-haired fellow” he’d met once upon a time to help fill in on the Boston University-Maryland game. Scully, 21, was glad to do it, but because of a mix-up, Scully wasn’t going to do it from a broadcasting booth. Instead, he had to work from the roof of the stadium on a cold and wind-whipped day, wearing only a light coat and counting upon a 60-watt bulb for his sole source of light and heat.

“Yet not once did that boy complain about how cold he was or how he couldn’t see,” remembers Barber, now living in Tallahassee, Fla. In fact, Scully didn’t even complain the following Monday when he saw Barber in the CBS offices. Scully’s misfortunes were retold to Barber later that week. “I was very impressed about that,” Barber says.

By 1950, Barber had offered Scully the job of replacing Ernie Harwell on the Dodger broadcasts, to be the No. 3 man behind Barber and Connie Desmond. But when Desmond left, Scully moved up to No. 2. By the beginning of the 1954 season, Barber had jumped to the New York Yankees and the Dodgers had themselves a brand-new No. 1 golden-throat, Vince Scully, age 26.

The show has not stopped since.

And now for the mortal side of Vinnie.

Scully has been criticized for cherishing good theater at the expense of reporting the news. The night before the baseball strike was to begin in 1981, he failed to tell his listeners that the strike would begin the next day. Instead, he hyped the game the next night, even though it most obviously would not be played. “The people were sick of hearing about the strike,” Scully says in defense today.

When Times columnist Scott Ostler chastised him for it and for other examples of protecting the Dodger image, mail ran 10 to 1 in favor of Scully, all of which proved one thing: Given a choice, the people would rather have Vinnie than the truth.

Not that Vinnie doesn’t tell the truth; it’s just that Vinnie, like any good master of ceremonies, sometimes fails to mention that the lead singer will perform tonight with a doozy of a hangover. “If you knew something lousy about your managing editor, would you print it?” Scully asks a writer. “I work for the Dodgers. They sign my check.”

Some think Scully an egotist because he insists that the Dodgers operate on the one man/one mike theory. That is, though there are three members of the Dodger radio and TV broadcast team--Scully, Jerry Doggett and Ross Porter--you will never hear any two voices on the same broadcast at the same time.

But there was a time, when Porter first arrived, in 1976, that O’Malley allowed Porter and Doggett to try two on the air at once.

“That was the way I’d been used to,” Porter says. “But after about a week, Peter said, ‘It’s working OK, but let’s go back to the old way.’ ”

When Scully jumped from CBS to NBC two years ago and was paired with Joe Garagiola, “people said it would be two giant egos clashing, two guys fighting for the mike,” Garagiola says. “But the first time Vin and I talked, we decided, ‘Hey, we’re professionals. Let’s work it out.’ And we did.”

Where Scully takes cheap shots is when people, hunting for chinks in the armor, hit a wall and begin picking nits, such as the rap that Scully sells too much stuff on the air. One, Scully can out-sell Ed McMahon. Two, if you’re Peter O’Malley, you like to stretch every dollar out of your part-time help.

And then there was a magazine writer who complained that Scully started too many sentences with “So . . . “ as in “So, on a shimmering summer night, the tension runs so taut that even the moon peeks out from behind a cloud to get a look.”

To this, Scully fans say, “So what?” Scully can order breakfast with so for all they care as long as what follows gives them goose bumps. (Come to think of it, Scully probably could do just that: “So, on a maaaaaaaaarvelous day for French Toast, I am reminded of Moliere, who said. . . . “)

The other thing is, if you’re out looking for flaws, Scully will gladly save you the trouble. Nobody likes to tell a joke on himself more than Vinnie.

Such as the time he and his wife, Sandy, were taking a trip. Scully packed the luggage in the trunk of the car and off they went. All along the freeway, an inordinate number of citizens were waving and pointing, honking horns and flashing lights. Naturally, Scully thought they were fans, who really do honk and wave and flash lights at him, though even this seemed a bit much. But, as Scully says, “I thought I was just having an especially good day with my public.” When Scully finally got out of the car, he realized he’d left a suitcase on the roof of the car and people were just trying to call it to his attention, without much luck. “Boy, did I feel stupid.”

That humility runs deep. When Scully was inducted into the broadcaster’s wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982, the Dodgers saluted him with a Vin Scully Night at Dodger Stadium. When he was introduced, the faithful gave him a huge and lengthy standing ovation. When the roar finally subsided, Scully stepped to the microphone, looked up at the people and said, “It’s only me.”

Scully knows from whence he came. For all his dulcet tones he has his sorrows.

Her name was Joan Crawford, not a movie star but with the mystique of one--rich in beauty, dark eyes, dark hair, a model’s face.

Reared in Massachusetts, she was working as a model in New York in 1957 when an advertising buddy of Scully’s set her up with Vinnie on a blind date. As things will happen, they were married the next year. That was 1958, a most eventful one for Scully, since the Dodgers moved west that year. The Scullys and the Dodgers began life anew in Los Angeles.

Joan and Vinnie had three kids--Michael, Kevin and Erin--and his love for those four began to make him rue life on the road with the Dodgers.

“I hate to see days and nights go by without seeing the family,” he said in 1969. “Time is the most precious thing of all, and I hate to squander it.”

But he had made it through another season, 1971, and was bracing himself for another when, at 3:30 a.m. on Jan. 26, 1972, he was awakened by the barking of a dog. When he turned to check on Joan, she was dead.

The coroner’s report said that Joan Scully had taken an accidental overdose of medication prescribed to her to help her rest from a severe cold and bronchitis.

Scully immersed his sorrow in his work. As always, he did not miss an assignment with the Dodgers. He flew to Vero Beach in February and carried on. Scully always carries on.

Two years later, he remarried, and today the Scully family counts eight, more than enough. They are Vin and Sandy, his new wife, Sandy’s two kids from a previous marriage (Todd, 20 and Kelly, 16), Scully’s three from Joan, and one of their own, 10-year-old Catherine.

But it is in Erin, 16, his last daughter by Joan, that Vin is faced with a laughing, dancing, giggling reminder of his Joan. For Erin, dark and handsome, looks strikingly like her late mother.

“I see Joan in everything Erin does,” Scully says. “I love that. For that, I will cherish her forever.”

In the 13 years since Joan’s death, Scully has rarely talked of it, even with Sandy. “I guess I ‘ m a pretty good actor,” he says. “I can be down and make myself cheerful. Lasorda always says to me: ‘You’re always happy.’ Well, I’m not always happy, but I try to act like I am.

“I just refuse to allow my feelings to show. . . . I’m the great coverup. Why? I don’t know. It’s not like I’m trying to spare everybody else the burden. It’s just that I was taught not to show my emotions. . . .

“My mother was an unemotional person. She was not the type to put her arms around me. And my stepfather was very much the contented, quiet Englishman. That’s why it’s hard for me. I can’t go all the way. I can’t reveal all my feelings. I could never bare my soul.

“Maybe I’ve kept it in too much, but I can’t look back. I don’t need a catharsis. I don’t need a cleansing. I’ve handled it in my own way. That’s just me. I have to do it my way. I can’t allow the sadness to lead me on.”

On his way to Vero Beach in mid-March for the 36th time, Scully, heavy-hearted and looking into the teeth of another eight-month season, plunked down in his seat in the first-class cabin and looked, for once, almost unhappy.

“You get to thinking, ‘Well, here I go for two more weeks on the road.’ I figured it all out once and I realized that in my career, I’ve been away from home for something like three full years. Three years. That gets to you. That gets depressing.”

When Scully gets depressed, he plunges himself into his work and so it was that he reached up to the overhead bin and pulled down his briefcase to do some.

When he opened it, he found a Snickers candy bar.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, here was Vin Scully, millionaire businessman, baseball’s storyteller, distinguished journalist, Peabody Award Winner and Hall of Fame resident, sitting in the first-class cabin of an airplane with a Snickers bar.

He took it out. There was a note attached.

It read:

Dear Daddy, We’ll Miss You, Love, Us. As Scully looked up, anybody could see in his eyes that, for at least this one moment, the show did not go on.

FO