Vin Scully, the voice of the Dodgers for 67 season, first in Brooklyn then Los Angeles, died at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday. He was 94, and his death was announced by the Dodgers. "We have lost an icon," Dodgers chief executive Stan Kasten said in a statement. "The Dodgers' Vin Scully was one of the greatest voices in all of sports."
Scully called his first Dodgers baseball game at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field in 1950 and broadcast his final game in 2016. In between, he earned accolades and the loyal following of generations of baseball fans, especially in Southern California. He was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame's broadcasting win in 1982, was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame later that year, and earned an Emmy for lifetime achievement in 1995. The American Sportscasters Association voted Scully the top sportscaster of all time in 2009, and President Barack Obama awarded Scully the Presidential Medal of Freedom a month after his retirement.
"The way Vin Scully called a baseball game, it felt like bumping into an old friend," David Wharton writes at the Los Angeles Times. "There were stories to tell and memories to share, his soothing banter as familiar as green grass and warm breezes on a sunny afternoon." Working alone without a color commentator for most of his career, Wharton adds, "Scully could spread an anecdote across several pitches, batters even, without a hitch."
Vincent Edward Scully was born in the Bronx in November 1927, the son of Irish immigrants. His father, a silk salesman, died of pneumonia when Scully was 7. He played baseball at Fordham University for two seasons, but gave it up to announce games for the university radio station WFUV. Scully's career with the Dodgers began when CBS Radio sports chief and Dodgers announcer Red Barber hired him after hearing him call some games. He moved to Los Angeles when the team did in 1958.
Scully's first wife, Joan, died in 1972, and his second wife, Sandi, passed away in early 2021. He had six children — his eldest son, Michael Scully, died in a helicopter accident in 1994 — and numerous grandchildren.