Vin Scully is likely the greatest sportscaster in history.
The longtime (67 years!) voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers died Tuesday at 94, creating an outpouring of affection from fans, broadcasters and anyone who ever heard him announce a game for the Dodgers or on national TV.
I won't make a big deal about it, but I possibly saved Scully's life 35 years ago. More on that later.
Scully's career involved describing performances by Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider and other Brooklyn Dodgers, then coming West and broadcasting the careers of every Dodger from Sandy Koufax through Clayton Kershaw. He was the national announcer for Hank Aaron's 715th homer in 1974. He was there for Bill Buckner's error in 1986 and for Kirk Gibson's homer off Dennis Eckersley in 1988.
Scully was also among the top NFL and golf announcers for decades. He was the play-by-play announcer in January 1982, when Joe Montana hit Dwight Clark with a touchdown pass to give the 49ers a 28-27 win over the Cowboys and send them to their first Super Bowl.
Scully wasn't just great, he created a generation of imitators. It was nearly impossible to listen to a baseball broadcast in the 1980s without hearing someone who sounded suspiciously like Scully. Giants current radio voice Jon Miller (another legendary announcer) does brilliant imitations of Scully, including a Japanese version.
Scully has company on the Mount Rushmore of greatest baseball announces (I'd definitely include Al Michaels–the Giants play-by-play announcer while I was in junior high–and Bob Uecker, who has been broadcasting Milwaukee Brewers games for 51 years), but Scully's combination of storytelling, warmth and basic human decency is hard to surpass.
And I arguably saved his life one summer night in the late 1980s.
I was a young sports writer, covering a Giants-Dodgers game at Candlestick Park. Twice a week in those days, I would drive from Fairfield to San Francisco or Oakland to cover games. One night, about 90 minutes before the game, I was returning to the press box from eating in the press cafeteria when I saw Scully walking the other way.
He noticed my press pass and acknowledged that he was a little lost in the concrete jungle of Candlestick.
"Saaaaaaay," he said in that drawn-out Scully voice, "Could you tell me where the dining room is?"
What? I felt like I was listening to Scully describe Steve Garvey or Ron Cey hitting a homer to beat my childhood Giants. But I also felt like I was listening to him describe Joe Montana hitting Dwight Clark with that famous pass. Vin Scully was talking to me!
Finally, I snapped out of my reverie.
"It's back there. Just around that corner," I said, pointing.
"Thanks," he said. (Actually, it was more like, "Thaaaaaaaanks.")
And he was gone, presumably to eat.
Over the years, I've considered what might have happened had I not given Scully that information. Perhaps he would have gotten lost and never found the cafeteria. He might have fainted from weakness in a bleak corner of Candlestick Park (there were plenty) and never been found.
It's not unreasonable to consider that had I not pointed out how to get to the press cafeteria to Vin Scully, he would have died that night. We wouldn't have heard his call of Kirk Gibson's homer. Dodgers fans would have lost 25-plus years of Scully calling games on radio and TV.
America lost a treasure Tuesday, but had I not heroically intervened when a stranger asked me how to get to a cafeteria, America could have lost that treasure 30-plus years ago.
I'm glad I could help, to which American should say, "Thaaaaaaanks."
Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.
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