Has Vin Scully really been absent from the broadcast booth since 2016? Silence never felt so deafening.
For more than six decades, the gentle redhead with the rich baritone voice was behind the microphone for the Dodgers: first in Brooklyn and then moving west to describe the exciting action in southern California.
Scully is a “Hall of Fame announcer” (a recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting excellence). He’s considered by many to be the greatest baseball announcer in history.
When LA fans think of Scully they can probably recall many memorable calls he made for their favorite team. Depending on their age it could be a Dodgers moment involving Duke Snider or Sandy Koufax or Steve Garvey or Fernando, or maybe Kirk Gibson, Mike Piazza, or Clayton Kershaw. Doesn’t matter: because those audio clips are tucked away somewhere in the memory of Dodgers fans forever.
Over at California Casinos, I wrote an article recently where I pick Vin Scully’s 7 Greatest Calls for the Dodgers. It was great fun sifting back through the years (all the way to Vin’s first year with Brooklyn in 1949!) to find historic radio and TV calls by the great broadcaster.
Here are a few of the calls for your convenience, and you should hop over and check out that story if you are so inclined.
Scully Calls Perfect Game by Sandy Koufax, September 9, 1965
For many, Sandy Koufax is the greatest pitcher of all-time. Whether he was or not, Koufax is a Dodgers legend, and every game he pitched was called by the beautiful voice of Vin Scully, including his only perfect game, against the Cubs in 1965.
Scully: Last Outs of Fernando Valenzuela’s No-Hitter, June 29, 1990
Other Dodgers pitchers may have won more games and more hardware, but none of them could match the frenzied popularity of Fernando Valenzuela, the lefty from Mexico who took baseball by storm in 1981 as a rookie. In 1990, a more seasoned Fernando tossed a no-hitter against the Cardinals, and in this clip Vin Scully describes the baseball history as it unfolds.
