The Vin Scully we all love

"All year long they looked to him (Kirk Gibson) to light the fire and all year long he answered the demands. High fly ball into right field. She is gone! [pause] In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened." "Andre Dawson has a bruised knee and is listed as day-to-day (pause). Aren't we all?"  "As long as you live keep smiling because it brightens everybody's day." "Football is to baseball as blackjack is to bridge. One is the quick jolt. The other the deliberate, slow-paced game of skill, but never was a sport more ideally suited to television than baseball. It's all there in front of you. It's theatre, really. The star is the spotlight on the mound, the supporting cast fanned out around him, the mathematical precision of the game moving with the kind of inevitability of Greek tragedy. With the Greek chorus in the bleachers!"  "Forget it." (his most popular home run call) "Good is not good when better is expected." "He (Bob Gibson) pitches as though he's double-parked."  "He's (Tom Glavine) like a tailor; a little off here, a little off there & you're done,take a seat." "How good was Stan Musial? He was good enough to take your breath away."   "I really love baseball. The guys and the game, and I love the challenge of describing things. The only thing I hate — and I know you have to be realistic and pay the bills in this life — is the loneliness on the road." "I said to him, 'Joe (Garagiola), you played a long time, but I've broadcast as many games as you've played, and then some. So if you're gonna talk "inside baseball," you tell the fans the "inside baseball." But don't tell me.'" "It's a mere moment in a man's life between the All-Star Game and an old timer's game."  "It's a passing (the last NBC Game of the Week on October 9, 1989) of a great American tradition. It is sad. I really and truly feel that. It will leave a vast window, to use a Washington word, where people will not get Major League Baseball and I think that's a tragedy."  "It's easier to pick off a fast runner than to pick off a lazy runner." "It was typical of him (Ted Williams) to become a Marine Air Corps pilot and see action and almost get shot down. He was a remarkable American as well as a remarkable ballplayer. His passing so close to a national holiday seems part of a divine plan, so we can always remember him not only as a great player but also as a great patriot." "I would come home to listen to a football game — there weren't other sports on — and I would get a pillow and I would crawl under the radio, so that the loudspeaker and the roar of the crowd would wash all over me, and I would just get goose bumps like you can't believe. And I knew that of all the things in this world that I wanted, I wanted to be that fella saying, whatever, home run, or touchdown. It just really got to me." "Ladies and gentlemen, the Brooklyn Dodgers are the champions of the world." "Let’s all take a deep breath as we go to the most dramatic ninth inning (1956 World Series : Don Larsen Perfect Game) in the history of baseball. I’m going to sit back, light up, and hope I don’t chew the cigarette to pieces." "Losing feels worse than winning feels good." Sandy Koufax's Perfect Game on September 9, 1965 9th Inning Vin Scully Word-for-Word Transcript Three times in his sensational career has Sandy Koufax walked out to the mound to pitch a fateful ninth where he turned in a no-hitter. But tonight, September the ninth, nineteen hundred and sixty-five, 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 eleven, he has retired twenty-four consecutive batters, and the first man he will look at is catcher Chris Krug, big right-hand hitter, flied to second, grounded to short. Dick Tracewski is now at second base and Koufax ready and delivers: curveball for a strike. "O" and one the count to Chris Krug. Out on deck to pinch-hit is one of the men we mentioned earlier as a possible, Joey Amalfitano. Here's the strike one pitch to Krug: 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, then 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, (John) Kennedy is deep to guard the line. The strike two pitch on the way: fastball, outside, ball one. Krug started to go after it and held up and Torborg held the ball high in the air trying to convince Vargo (the umpire) but Eddie said no sir. One and two the count to Chris Krug. It is 9:41 p.m. on September the ninth. The one-two 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 and stop anything hit their way: Wes Parker, Dick Tracewski, Maury Wills and John Kennedy; the outfield of Lou Johnson, Willie Davis and Ron Fairly. And there's twenty-nine thousand people in the ballpark and a million butterflies. Twenty nine thousand, one hundred and thirty-nine paid. Koufax into his windup and the one-two 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 one-two pitch: fastball outside, ball two. (Crowd booing on the tape.) A lot of people in the ballpark now are starting to see the pitches with their hearts. The pitch was outside, Torborg tried to pull it 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, two-two pitch: fastball, got him swinging. Sandy Koufax has struck out twelve. 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, a strike. "O" and one with one out in the ninth inning, one to nothing, Dodgers. Sandy reading, into his windup and the strike one pitch: curveball, tapped foul, "O" and two. 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, "O" and two to Amalfitano. The strike two pitch to Joe: fastball, swung on and missed, strike three. He is one out away from the promised land, and Harvey Kuenn is comin' up. So Harvey Kuenn is batting for Bob Hendley. The time on the scoreboard is 9:44. The date, September the ninth, nineteen-sixty-five, and Koufax working on veteran Harvey Kuenn. Sandy into his windup and the pitch, a fastball for a strike. He has struck out, by the way, five consecutive batters, and that's gone unnoticed. Sandy ready and the strike one pitch: very high, and he lost his hat. He really forced that one. That's 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 to 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 a 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 two-one 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. (Thirty-eight seconds of cheering by the crowd.) 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 twenty-nine thousand one-hundred thirty nine 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 caps 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 flurry. He struck out the last six consecutive batters. So when he wrote his name in capital letters in the record books, that "K" stands out even more than the O-U-F-A-X. "Sometimes it seems like he's (Bobby Bonilla) playing underwater."  "Statistics are used much like a drunk uses a lamp post: for support, not illumination." "The Dodgers are such a .500 team that if there was a way to split a three-game series, they'd find it."  "The only difference between a winning team and a losing team is one game. The winning team can win two out of three games…the losing team can only win one out of three." "There's a high bouncer over the mound, over second base, Mantilla's up wit h it, throws low and WILD... HODGES SCORES, WE GO TO CHICAGO. (crowd noise for a nice long while) The Cinderella team (1959 Los Angeles Dodgers) of the National League." "There's a little roller up along first, behind the bag! It gets through (Bill) Buckner! Here comes (Ray) Knight and the Mets win it!" - 1986 World Series   "When he (Maury Wills) runs, it's all downhill."

Quotes About Vin Scully

American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame (Inducted in 1992) Plaque: "As the voice of the Dodgers for over 40 years, Vin Scully is recognized as one of the truly great baseball announcers. To baseball fans, including the original Brooklyn Dodgers diehards, Vin is beloved as much as the game of baseball itself. A native of New York City, Scully spent two years in the Navy before he graduated from Fordham University where he was a varsity basketball player. Scully began his broadcasting career at WTOP-AM in Washington, D.C. In 1950, the late Red Barber, together with Connie Desmond, chose Vin to broadcast the Brooklyn Dodgers games. Thus began Vin's illustrious baseball broadcasting career. In 1982 Vin rejoined the old Red Head, this time in the broadcast wing of baseball's Hall of Fame as the recipient of the Ford Frick Award. Vin moved with the Dodgers when "Dem Bums" relocated to Los Angeles in 1958. With NBC and CBS Sports, Scully has covered 12 World Series and six All-Star Games for television as well as many of baseball's most thrilling moments. A master of the English language, steeped in the knowledge of the sport and with an understanding of what fans want to "see" and "hear", Vin has enriched and refined the art of sportscasting. Scully is the recipient of virtually every honor which can be bestowed upon him including the George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting. In 1985, Vin was honored by the American Sportscasters Association with it's Sportscaster of the Year Award." "At times I'll be listening to him and I'll think, Oh, I wish I could call upon that expression the way he does. He paints the picture more beautifully than anyone who's ever called a baseball game." - Dick Enberg "It may sound corny, but, I enjoyed listening to Vin (Scully) call a game almost more than playing in them. He's been a special broadcaster for a lot of years and he's been wonderful to listen too for a lot of years. He definitely is the All Century broadcaster as far as I'm concerned." - Sandy Koufax "On the baseball field, it was my good fortune to play with many Hall of Famers. Today, that good fortune continues as I work the booth with another Hall of Famer, my good friend Vin Scully." - Don Drysdale Radio Hall of Fame (Inducted in 1995) Plaque: "Vin Scully holds the distinction of the longest consecutive service of any current major league broadcaster for one team. When you think of Vin Scully, you think of the Dodgers. Born in the Bronx on November 27, 1927, Scully began his broadcasting career while attending Fordham University. He announced baseball games over the University’s radio station and also got some experience “in the field” by playing for the team for two seasons. A year after graduating, Vin joined the Dodgers in 1950, where he worked alongside Radio Hall of Famer and baseball legend Red Barber. Because he has been with the Dodgers both in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, Scully has described the heroics of some of the greatest players of the second half of the 20th century. The exploits of Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax, as well as the world championship seasons of (1955 - Not On Plaque) 1959, 1963, 1965, 1981 and 1988, have unfolded before the perceptive eyes of Vin Scully. In 1965, Scully brought the thrill of Sandy Koufax’s perfect game to Dodger fans everywhere. Scully is so well-regarded for his mastery of the English language and his enviable demeanor that the “voice of the Dodgers” has become the “voice of the World Series” year after year for the CBS Radio Network. In 1976, Dodger fans voted Scully the “most memorable personality” in Los Angeles Dodger history." "There is no broadcaster in baseball with Vinny's eloquence, sense of humor, knowledge of baseball history, and genuine class." - DodgerBlues.com "Vin Scully has the most musical voice in baseball. He doesn't have the clipped, old-time-radio cadence of most broadcasters who date back to the '50s and beyond. Although his timbre is thin, everything is smooth and rounded. The words slide into each other. He has flow. The melody rises and falls on the tide of the game. You can almost hum along to Vin Scully. He's often referred to as baseball's poet laureate, and those who don't get him parody him by quoting Emerson or spouting flowery language. But even though he will occasionally toss off some verse (he's likely to find the lyrics of an old show tune more apt) or call a cheap base hit "a humble thing, but thine own," the real metaphor for Vin Scully isn't poetry, or even music: It's painting. Other radio announcers can tell you what's happening on the field, and you can imagine it. With Vin Scully, you can see it. His command of the language and the game is so masterful that he always has just the right words to describe what's going on. He paints you a picture." - Gary Kaufman in Salon (2000)