Los Angeles Dodgers announcer Vin Scully’s plan for retirement involves books, flowers, and family.
Los Angeles Dodgers announcer Vin Scully broadcast his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1950, Jackie Robinson had broken the modern color barrier just three years before. Major League Baseball had 16 teams. There were no playoffs, just a World Series between the winner of the American League and the winner of the National League. The New York Yankees had just started a string of five straight World Series championships and the first color television program had not yet aired.
In his 67 years as an announcer for the Dodgers, Scully has seen Major League Baseball expand six times, going from 16 teams to 30 teams, with multiple layers of playoffs added along the way. In 1950, there was no team farther west than St. Louis. His own Dodgers changed this after the 1957 season, when they headed across the country with the New York Giants so the clubs could continue their rivalry on the west coast.
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When Scully was awarded the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcast excellence in 1982, it was likely that no one expected him to still be announcing Dodgers games in 2016, yet here he is. He’s been behind the microphone for so many great moments; it would be hard to create a top 10 list because he has so many moments that would have to be left out. Perhaps his most iconic moment as a broadcaster was the epic home run by Kirk Gibson off Dennis Eckersley in the 1988 World Series.
“In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.” How many baseball fans have done the Kirk Gibson “start the lawnmower” motion in pick-up games in their backyards? That call was particularly memorable because it was Scully’s Dodgers who won the game. Of course, Scully had other memorable moments that involved the Dodgers, including Don Larsen’s perfect game against the Dodgers in the 1956 World Series, Sandy Koufax’ Perfect game in 1965, and Hank Aaron’s 715th home run against the Dodgers’ Al Downing in 1974.
Scully had memorable moments that didn’t involve the Dodgers as well. As a football announcer, he called “The Catch” in 1982, when Joe Montana hit Dwight Clark for the game-winning touchdown in the NFC Championship Game. He was also the announcer during the 1986 World Series when Mookie Wilson’s slow grounder to first base wiped out Bill Buckner’s 22-year career and 2,715 career hits and replaced them with a single play that Buckner would forever be known for.
If MLB were to create a Mt. Rushmore of Baseball Lifers, Vin Scully would be among the faces chiseled into the granite, along with Don Zimmer, Johnny Pesky, and Red Schoendienst (perhaps it should be a five-man Mt. Rushmore so Yogi Berra could get a spot). Scully has broadcast three perfect games, 20 no-hitters, 12 All-Star games, and 25 World Series. He’s in the broadcaster’s wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame, the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame, the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame, the California Sports Hall of Fame, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
So what does a guy with this resume do when he retires? Scully was interviewed on “The Herd” with Colin Cowherd to discuss his future. He was asked how he would spend his retirement and gave an interesting response.
“You know, if you retire at the age of 65, the chances are you’re going to have 20 more years. And so ‘what are you going to do’ is important to fill 20 years. When you retire at 89, the only answer to ‘What are you going to do?’ is ‘Try to live.’ I have 16 grandchildren, three great grandchildren, a wife I adore. I want to live with them. So that is really my answer.”
Scully elaborated on what the definition of live is for him. “That’s going to be reading a lot, because I love to read. And I will have the time. And just watch a flower grow, I don’t know. I’m just going to enjoy life as best I can, for as long as I can enjoy it.”
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That sounds like good advice for everyone: “I’m just going to enjoy life as best I can, for as long as I can enjoy it.” Well said, Vin Scully, well said.