June 29, 2015

This is Vin Scully's 66th season broadcasting Dodger games. Seriously.:
A goddman national treasure, I will turn on any Dodger games I am awake for on the east coast, and go to sleep listening to him call a game.

posted by grum@work to baseball at 10:27 PM - 4 comments

He first started broadcasting Dodger games in 1950.

  • There were only 48 states in the union at the time.

  • All five best picture nominees at the Oscars that year were in black & white, the last year that ever happened.

  • St. Louis was the western-most team in MLB. There are now 12 teams further west.

  • Since broadcasting his first Dodger game, Ken Griffey was born, grew up, played 19 seasons in MLB, retired, and his son also played 22 seasons in MLB, and retired 5 years ago.

  • He's also broadcasted the entire careers of Gus Bell (1950-1964), his son Buddy Bell (1972-1989), and his sons David Bell (1995-2006) and Mike Bell (2000).

  • There have been twelve different presidents during that time.

  • One of the players he did play-by-play about was born more than 106 years ago.

  • It was the last season that Connie Mack was a manager in MLB. He was born almost 153 years ago.

posted by grum@work at 10:55 PM on June 29, 2015

I have recordings of Scully and Johnny Bench calling the 1991 World Series. Scully's combination of joy and exhaustion in Game 7 is unmatched.

posted by TheQatarian at 10:57 PM on June 29, 2015

As a kid, I first saw Scully hosting daytime TV game shows and talk shows and had no idea he was the voice of the Dodgers. Then when he got some network TV sports gigs, I thought: "Great, now they've got talk show hosts doing games. Who'll they get next, Monty Hall or Mike Douglas?"

Little did I know...

The first couple of times I heard him on air doing network games, I thought: "Hey, this guy seems to have a knack for sports announcing. Let's give him a chance and see what he can do."

Eventually, I found out what many others already knew about this sublime talent.

All those years I had to listen to Garagiola when I could have been listening to Scully...

posted by beaverboard at 11:42 AM on June 30, 2015

I'd like to set down at a table, in a little hole-in-the-wall bar, drink in hand and just listen to him tell stories.

posted by ic23b at 01:12 AM on July 03, 2015

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