Los Angeles Dodgers: What Vin Scully meant to me

A voice for generations of Dodgers fans, from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, has been silenced with the news that Vin Scully passed away at the age of 94 on Tuesday evening. Scully broadcasted games for the Dodgers from 1950 until 2016 while also being the national voice of baseball from 1983-1989 for NBC. Scully was a versatile broadcaster who called also golf and football on both radio and television.

Scully, known for weaving stories into the broadcast, was a poet laureate for the game, and by the time he retired, he was considered the best to ever occupy the broadcast booth.

Plenty of those who knew him will do better than this writer to eulogize the memory of Vin Scully, but if I can be indulged as a native Angeleno, there’s a lot to say about what Scully meant to me.

Scully was more than just a voice for baseball — he was the voice of my childhood. Before I even knew the rules of the game, I heard Sully’s voice.

In our current digital age, it’s easy to watch virtually any game or highlight of your favorite team. When I was growing up, Dodgers home games were still not broadcast in homes all the time. To hear Scully from Dodger Stadium, you had to find him on the radio.

Dodgers — and baseball — legend Vin Scully passed away at 94 years old

It was his voice that painted my early impressions of baseball. On the road, Scully was on your television set welcoming you to various parks around the National League, and when he was the head broadcaster on NBC, he was the weekend voice of the “Game of the Week.”

In my house, if baseball was on from March to October, you heard Scully. His voice was so inviting and so indelible that even in the ballpark, you could still hear Scully when people brought in their transistor radio (a Dodgers tradition!).

Over the years as Scully aged, he remained the voice of the Dodgers, reminding you the “It’s Time for Dodgers Baseball.” To me he was much more — he was as much the poet laureate for the game, narrating Dodgers highlights and emceeing almost every Dodgers ceremony that came, even in his retirement.

Even at my first Dodgers World Series in person, Scully was there for Game 2 in 2017 when he played the master of ceremonies as he called out Dodgers great Fernando Valenzuela to throw the first pitch.

He may not have been in the broadcast booth, but he was rightfully still part of baseball that night. Scully may be gone, but he will always be the voice who led me to baseball and to the Dodgers. We are all better to have known his voice, and may he rest knowing he meant the world to his fans.

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