Like most Dodger fans of fine will, I don’t take care of the San Francisco Giants. I do, nevertheless, find myself being attentive to how they’re doing, because sometimes it matters within the standings. Not this 12 months, mind you, where they’re 20 games back of the Dodgers (💅💅💅). But sometimes.
One such 12 months was 2012, when Giants pitcher Matt Cain threw an ideal game en path to their World Series championship. When legendary Dodgers announcer Vin Scully described Cain’s performance, he delivered considered one of countless drop-the-mic moments in his 67-year profession. There have been days when every pitcher might be touched for a success or a run, Vin noted, “but today, Cain is ready.”
Vin Scully tossed out that form of biblical allusion effortlessly. Scully, whose death Tuesday on the age of 94 has sent Los Angeles into mourning and occasioned tributes and remembrances from all over the world, had a breadth of spiritual and cultural knowledge that spanned far beyond the limited range of your usual play-by-play man. To be fair, it spanned far beyond that of most priests, politicians and professors.
Do you remember Raul Mondesi? Vin Scully once took a minute or two between batters to match him to the Apollo Belvedere.
Do you remember Raul Mondesi? The 1994 National League Rookie of the Yr, Mondesi called himself “The Cannon” for his powerful throwing arm, and he was twice the scale of your average right fielder. Vin Scully once took a minute or two between batters to match him to the Apollo Belvedere.
If it’s been a couple of years since your art history survey course, the Apollo Belvedere is a second-century marble sculpture of the Greco-Roman god Apollo, depicted moments after shooting an arrow. Over seven feet tall, the statue was hailed within the 18th century as the proper example of the Hellenistic aesthetic ideal of an athletic male. It stays on display today within the Vatican Museums, its status somewhat tarnished by recent generations of art critics but its influence visible throughout the world in painting and statuary. And, for that matter, within the casual observations of 1 play-by-play man.
Vin liked to wax philosophical during at-bats as well. When he told us that Chicago Cubs star Andre Dawson had bruised his knee, he reported that “he’s listed as day-to-day. Aren’t all of us?” He can be often quoted for his analogy on aging: “It’s a mere moment in a person’s life between an All-Star game and an old-timer’s game.”
Vin Scully: “It’s a mere moment in a person’s life between an All-Star game and an old-timer’s game.”
When he wasn’t on the air, Scully sometimes revealed the worldview behind the general public persona. “Being Irish, being Catholic, from the primary day I can remember, I used to be told about death,” Scully told columnist Bob Verdi in 1986. “Death is a continuing companion in our religion. You reside with it easily; it will not be a morbid thought. That has given me the angle that whatever I even have can disappear in 30 seconds. And being out on the road as much as I’m, I realize I’m killing probably the most precious thing I even have—time. You never understand how much of it you’ve got left.”
Scully’s second wife, Sandra, died last 12 months after a protracted battle with A.L.S. His first wife, Joan, died in 1972 from an accidental overdose, leaving Scully with three young children. In an interview with The National Catholic Register in 2013, Scully reflected on the tragedy:
When my wife, Joan, died in 1972 on the age of 35, I used to be devastated, as were our youngsters. We didn’t stop praying, though. The worst thing you’ll be able to do in times of trial is to stop praying. The tough moments are while you need God probably the most. He’s at all times there and greater than completely happy to provide us His help; we want only ask for it.
Scully was a devout Catholic (a Fordham man!), and spoke openly in that interview about his prayer life. “There are such a lot of good things concerning the church, but that could be probably the most essential thing I’ve learned from it: the importance of continual communication with God,” he said. “That’s what all of the kneelers, candles, incense, stained-glass windows, holy water and other things are about: directing our minds and hearts to God.”
“Don’t be sad that it’s over,” Vin said. “Smile since it happened.”
In fact, he had an impish side as well—this was a fellow whose favorite catchphrases got here from poker. No Angeleno will ever hear the phrase “deuces wild” and never think it’s a two-and-two count to the batter. Vin had a vivid tackle modern baseball’s reliance on sabermetrics and exhaustive statistical evaluation as well. “Statistics,” he said, “are used very like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination.”
Every Dodger fan—possibly every baseball fan—has his or her favorite Vin Scully quote. Back within the day, it didn’t even matter when you were on the ballgame: You continue to listened to Vin on a transistor radio, trusting him greater than your personal eyes. My favorite line is one shared by many: Scully’s easy coda after Kirk Gibson’s game-winning home run in Game Considered one of the 1988 World Series, delivered after two full minutes of silence: “In a 12 months that has been so improbable, the unattainable has happened!”
Over the a long time, it wasn’t just Vin Scully’s quick wit, easy erudition and nice demeanor that made him a legend: It was the voice itself. Once I was in college, I got to satisfy him once at a profit dinner where I used to be working as a waiter. I snuck as much as his table and introduced myself (he was charming), and suddenly there it was: The Voice.
If you happen to grew up hearing it, he could describe probably the most mundane things possible and also you’d listen with half a smile. You don’t imagine me? Well, get out a hanky because when you go here on Youtube, you’ll be able to take heed to Vin Scully read a grocery list.
On his last day as a Dodger announcer in 2016, Scully paraphrased Dr. Seuss in a quote that many a mourner should take to heart today. “Don’t be sad that it’s over,” Vin said. “Smile since it happened.”