In what can be a frantic sports world in which the only context some desire is a betting line, the passing of broadcaster Vin Scully Tuesday at age 94 is a reminder that when it comes to our games and the enjoyment of them, words matter.
For Scully, they were of the spoken variety, on radio and television, for a lifetime. He called Dodgers games for 67 years—1950-2016—and was a network fixture for decades. Scully’s vivid descriptions were complemented by vital silence when the moment demanded as he realized, better than many with a mic, that sometime pictures, whether in a listener’s mind or on a viewer’s screen, don’t need a caption.
Around the sadness of Scully’s death, there was joy this morning in being reminded through so many social media posts about just how good he was at his craft. Some of Scully’s biggest hits—Sandy Koufax in 1965, Hank Aaron in 1974 and Kirk Gibson in 1988—will be recalled for as long as athletes suit up for games.
I’ve been struck by the personal recollections of southern Californians who grew up and grew older with Vin’s calls over long baseball seasons in Los Angeles, where he was a beloved institution and balm to real-life worries. Southern Cal native and longtime golf writer Geoff Shackelford noted in a tweet that “his real genius was in taking a dog days weeknight game and making it special.”
It wasn’t only what Scully said but how he said it. His voice was easy listening in best sense, the aural equivalent of bare feet on soft carpet.
Scully was “authentic” long before that became a 21st century cliché utilized to sell something or somebody. Those who got so much pleasure from Scully’s broadcasts sensed how much he relished his job and that there was nothing else he would rather be doing.
“It’s so easy to let our obsession with what’s next rob of us of today’s joy,” tweeted Sean Martin, a golf writer and editor who came of age listening to Scully. “Vin did the same job for 67 years and loved every minute of it. It’s such admirable contentment.”
Scully always will be more closely linked to a ball with seams not dimples, but he announced plenty of golf in the 1970s and ’80s as the lead voice for CBS then NBC during an era when viewers were grateful for the four or five holes, they got see instead of grousing about a Thursday morning shot that was played during a commercial. Scully called the 1975 Masters, one of the most memorable final rounds in golf history when Jack Nicklaus held off Johnny Miller and Tom Weiskopf to win the green jacket for a fifth time.
“So, as they stride forward towards their approach shot,” Scully said on the CBS broadcast after Nicklaus and Tom Watson hit their tee shots on No. 18, “the huge gallery comes from all of the other holes, like some vast Christmas ribbon that’s been pulled through the trees.”
That’s a beautiful line about which someone writing on a generous deadline would be proud. Delivered in the moment, they were words gifted by a legend, one of many presents over many years, talent providing pleasure just like those with club or bat in hand.