Los Angeles Dodgers Vin Scully: A Baseball Titan and Gentleman Retires
Vin Scully is set to fade away from the baseball landscape in a few short weeks. True to form, he leaves without the chest thumping and bravado of a certain player from Beantown. While the Los Angeles Dodgers would give him the world for his service to their brand as well as to MLB as a whole, Scully would rather just climb into the booth and broadcast the next game until there are no more games.
People retire every day from their dedicated professions. In most cases, there is the obligatory parting gift and in many cases even a party with all of the stale roasting jokes along with all the rubber chicken you can eat.
But every once in a while, someone comes along who’s in another realm of achievement and the accolades simply can’t match the contributions made by the employee. And all you can say is that the time sure went by quick and you will be missed.
Vin Scully’s retirement falls into that category. Because while 67 years is considered a lifetime for many of us, Vin Scully has spent that long broadcasting ball games. A remarkable achievement in and of itself, it’s his style and graceful mannerisms behind a mic that baseball fans will remember and miss the most.
Almost as though by an act of God, his career eventually took him to laid-back L.A. where it is customary not to leave home to attend a game until the first pitch is thrown and you have Scully on the car radio. And by the time you reach your seat, Vin Scully has already spun two or three stories off the top of his head that not only are entertaining but add to your knowledge of a particular player or some minute aspect of the game being played on the field.
Vin Scully could be described as “peculiar” in the way he is executing his exit from baseball. But more than likely he is simply a humble human being who, as explained in this article that appeared recently in USA Today, is just not interested in the accolades that are rightly being showered on him.
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And while he knows that he has stories to tell that he hasn’t had time to remember to tell, he knows that for him personally, it’s time to go. The Los Angeles Dodgers, for their part, would want him to go on forever and why not? Vin Scully is as much a part of the Dodgers franchise as Clayton Kershaw. Wisely though, they have chosen to let it go.
What is strange though is that the suits at MLB have not invited Scully to broadcast the World Series this year. This would give all of America, and in particular baseball’s younger and dwindling audience, a chance to get to enjoy the unique attributes of Vin Scully if they haven’t had the pleasure to do so because they live outside the Dodgers market.
Then again, he may have been offered this opportunity, and being Vin Scully, he turned it down. But in any case, the career, and yes even the retirement, of Vin Scully is something to celebrate. And regardless of what Scully wants, all of baseball extends a heartfelt salute to a career well done and baseball will indeed miss you.
Footnote: The Vin Scully stories come in bunches and ESPN has chronicled several of them as remembered by a group of his peers and friends.