Saying Good-bye to a Comfortable Sound!

 

On August 2^nd, around 8pm PDT, the news started to filter through the world that a long time voice, and a sound that was comfortable to listen to, on a warm (or hot) summer evening.

This voice started out in Brooklyn, New York, with a team called the Dodgers, and with names like Pee Wee, and Bragen, and Robinson. DEM BUMS as some would call them moved in the 50’s to Los Angeles, and started his tenure that lasted between Brooklyn to LA, 67 years behind the microphone for not only radio but Television broadcast as well.

The ONE and THE only- Vin Scully, who passed away at the age of 95, and with that, the microphone grew silent once again.

Our lives—if you are a fan of sports, sometimes, can be associated with the sound of a voice, through the magic of radio, that kept us company at night—or when we were younger--- tuning in to listen to the World Series during school (if you could get away with it, or better yet your Teacher was a fan of the game as well)

The voice at the other end was comforting, and like a warm blanket that would wrap itself around you and give you that solace that, everything was alright in the world.

When you think, and reflect, on the voices of your life, what impacted you, what were the sounds that were comforting. It might have been the voices of your parents, or grandparents. It might have been the voices that were that of your friends, or someone close to you!

I had the opportunity to meet Vin Scully when the Dallas All Sports Association honored him in the early 2000’s at a dinner. Listening to him talk about his career, and the greats that he had been associated with, and being at the microphone for monumental moments, such as World Series, Perfect Games, No Hitters, then there were College Games, and Football games, and Golf Tournaments—his voice was marking that of time that we spent watching the those events.

He lent his voice and talent to a movie with Kevin Costner in it, called “For the Love of the Game” which also starred the late Kelly Preston (John Travolta’s wife). A sports movie with a Love Story twist and turn, about an aging pitcher, in the twilight of his career, and staring at the perfect game, and every line uttered by Vin Scully was an absolute gem. Now its not as quoted as those of Bob Eucker in “Major League”, but none the less they are gems, such as “Pushing the Sun back up into the sky” or my favorite, “The Cathedral that is known as Yankee Stadium--- belongs to a Chapel!” In reference to the fictional pitcher, Billy Chapel in the movie.

During his talk at the DASA banquet, he spoke of his broadcasting style, and to this day I have stolen some of this thoughts, one was—” A picture may paint a thousand words, but we use a thousand words to paint a picture” referring to radio broadcasters, and the other was about the game of baseball, that while broadcasting the game its more about the drama you bring to the game through your words, and therefore a baseball game is nothing more than a good story interrupted by a game.”

His was about poetry, and how he could weave the stories into the game, and make them a part of his style and his ability to bring YOU the listener into the game.

He will be remembered for calling Kirk Gibson’s Home Run against the A’s in the World Series, where Gibson was hobbled, and hurting and took a swing and sent it to the right field bleachers—the Fist Pump of Gibson rounding second, and the sounds of Vin Scully just ever so slightly come across to emphasize the moment.

He was the master of being subtle, let the crowd tell the story best, and you just absorb, as a listener or a viewer, to the event.

He was the same when Sandy Kofax threw a perfect game, or when the Dodger or any other team won the World Series, Scully knew to let the moment have its own, and let the fans enjoy what was transpiring.

Eighteen NO Hitters 3 Perfect Games- Three World Series, and countless Game of the Weeks broadcast, along with being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as a Ford Frick award winner, and other accomplishments.

What will be missed the most, well since he fully retired in 2016 from the booth, and his age of over 90 years of age, when you think about it, most of what he had done in broadcasting is still archived, and we can still go back and listen to it over and over again. So in reality, Vin Scully, much like, Mel Allen, or Red Barber, or Jack Buck—Harry Carry, John Facenda, Pat Summerall, Frank Gifford, Howard Cosell, and the list goes on of those voices that shaped our lives and brought to life the games that we watched or listen to. (Didn’t wish to leave out Keith Jackson).

Its “So Long for now”, and until we meet again—from that great Press Box in the sky—Vin Scully you have been and always be a part of our time line of our lives.

Just a thought.