Vin Scully to continue announcing Dodger games
Vin Scully will return to the Dodgers broadcastbooth for a record 65th season in 2014, again calling all home games and roadgames in California and Arizona, the team announced today.
“I have thoroughly enjoyed the excitement of this season and there isno way I could leave this truly remarkable team and our great fans,” the 85-year-old Scully said. “With my wife Sandi’s blessing, I’ve decided I’d like tocome back and do it again next season.
“I love what the new ownership has brought to the team and the energyprovided by the fans, who have packed renovated Dodger Stadium. It reminds methat other than being home with my family, there is no place else I’d ratherbe.”
Dodger chairman and owner Mark Walter said “the Dodgers are overjoyedto have Vin back with the team in 2014. Vin is Dodger baseball. The Dodgers,the sport of baseball and the city of Los Angeles are extremely fortunate tohave him in our midst.”
Earvin “Magic” Johnson, the Basketball Hall of Fame member who is apartner of Guggenheim Baseball Management which owns the team, said “we’re sograteful that Vin wants to continue to call Dodger games. Being able to listento Vin helps make every Dodger game something special.”
Scully has been announcing the team’s games since 1950, when it wasbased in Brooklyn. In 2014, he will call all nine innings of the team’stelevision broadcasts on the Time Warner SportsNet LA, with the first threeinnings of each of his games simulcast on KLAC-AM (570).
“Vin brings a unique perspective to Dodger baseball,” team presidentand CEO Stan Kasten said.
“Everyone in the Dodger family and within the sound of his voicebenefits each and every time we are afforded the opportunity to hear him call aDodger game. We are thrilled to know that experience will continue at leastthrough the 2014 season.”
Scully’s many honors include the Ford C. Frick Award, presented annuallyby the Baseball Hall of Fame to a broadcaster for “major contributions tobaseball” and being named the greatest sportscaster by the AmericanSportscasters Association.
A ranking system devised by author Curt Smith for his 2005 book “Voicesof the Game” determined that Scully was baseball’s greatest announcer,giving him a perfect score of 100, based on such factors as longevity,language, popularity and persona.
Either on the team or NBC broadcasts, Scully has called such memorablemoments by the Dodgers (or their opponents) as Kirk Gibson’s pinch-hit home runin the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, SandyKoufax’s perfect game in 1965, New York Yankee pitcher Don Larsen’s perfectgame against the Dodgers in the 1956 World Series and Hank Aaron’s record-setting 715th home run.
“He is the Babe Ruth of our industry. Period. End of story,” fellowDodger announcer Charley Steiner told City News Service in a 2012 interview.
“He is to sportscasting what The Beatles were to music. You could arguewho is the second greatest group of all time, you can argue who’s the secondgreatest baseball broadcaster of all time, but case closed on The Beatles andVin.”
