Win for Vin!

Yeah, a great sports-announcer becomes like part a the family, almost.

I didnt know Vin was retiring.

w
v

Zooey wrote:

I remember as a kid taking my dad’s transistor radio out to the backyard on summer evenings to listen to the Dodgers games. After sunset, I could pick up the LA station that broadcast the games.

Vin Scully’s melodic and poetic voice painted my childhood. He is truly the best I ever heard, by far, and I will miss him.

67 years calling Dodgers games. Do you know that that is half the history of the Giants? The Giants are 134 years old. Not quite half the history of the Dodgers, who have been around longer. But this is a guy who knew Jackie Robinson personally.

Same here Zooey……KFI Los Angeles…… growing up in the 70’s one of my brothers was / is a big Dodger fan, so as the sun set to the west (got that Jared Goff?) which provided the right ionosphere layer allowing an optimal AM radio signal for us 400 miles north in Santa Clara, CA we’d pick up the Dodger games on our old Zenith AM radio on 640 AM on the dial

just last Tuesday, I was thumbing through my Twitter feed shortly after my beloved Giants blew yet ANOTHER FUCKING SAVE opportunity, Vinnie Tweeted, “The Giants are driven to their knees again by the bullpen” ….. I thought to myself “FUCK YOU VIN SCULLY, you’re still great”…..

• This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by joemad.

joemad wrote:

Same here Zooey……KFI Los Angeles…… growing up in the 70’s one of my brothers was / is a big Dodger fan, so as the sun set to the west (got that Jared Goff?) which provided the right ionosphere layer allowing an optimal AM radio signal for us 400 miles north in Santa Clara, CA we’d pick up the Dodger games on our old Zenith AM radio on 640 AM on the dial

just last Tuesday, I was thumbing through my Twitter feed shortly after my beloved Giants blew yet ANOTHER FUCKING SAVE opportunity, Vinnie Tweeted, “The Giants are driven to their knees again by the bullpen” ….. I thought to myself “FUCK YOU VIN SCULLY, you’re still great”…..

Yep, 640AM. I remember KFI used to have a “Groaner of the Day” contest. Send in a bad sports pun on someone’s name, and win this man-shaped balloon with cardboard feet that would pinch the balloon shut. I won two of them, one for some joke about Roman Gabriel that ended, “Romaine, lettuce go.” And the other was some stupid thing about Bernie Casey – “There’s your case, see?” KFI. That has nothing to do with anything, but I just thought of it.

It was a bummer when KFI quit being their flagship station cuz it’s like 50k watts, and they moved to KABC 790 which isn’t as strong. Eventually they quit that, and I had a stint of years listening to some Las Vegas station, and another in Bakersfield. This season is the first one in which I couldn’t get any games on the radio.

Thanks to the marvels of the internet, though, I have not only better reception, but a picture to go along with it whenever I am so moved.

You mention the “Giants driven to their knees….” I remember once a phrase when some pitcher got lit up, and the manager took him out, “and they are going to carry him out on his shield…that’ll do it for___________.”

A million great phrases, but it is his mastery of story-telling that truly set him above everyone else. He just knew how to do it. Interrupting the story to make the call, or picking the story up again after an inning change over, and what stories. He just had these great stories about Koufax, or DiMaggio, or Musial, or whoever.

Absolutely #1 of all-time.

(I hate Charlie Steiner, btw. As Hamlet said, “What a falling off is there!” I’d like to steal Jon Miller. He’s ten times the announcer Steiner is).

Another thing about Vinny. He wasn’t a homer. He was a baseball fan. Some announcers just go all nuts over the team they work fan, they are biased fans of the team.

I always appreciated the way Vinny would call exciting plays the same way whether they were the Dodgers, or their opponents. The man loves baseball, and he respects all the players and managers who play(ed) the game. He had a kind of reverence for the game, and that came through in good times, and bad, in exciting games, and boring games.

67 years calling games for the same team. Talk about unbreakable records. The man started calling Dodgers games when he was 20 – during the Truman administration – and retired at the age of 87. DiMaggio’s hitting streak will be broken first.

Herzog wrote:

When Jack Buck passed I felt like I lost a family member

I could never get used to Harry Carey broadcasting for the Cubs. Jack Buck is the baseball broadcasting standard IMO. He and Shannon were a great team. Remember Red Rush?

• This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by bnw.