Vin Scully: Dealing with the silence of a voice lost

Vin Scully appears on the left field scoreboard at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, Calif., June 17, 2014 | File photo by Ken Lund via Wikimedia, licensed under CC2.0 unported, St. George News

OPINION — A part of life is facing loss. We grieve for fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and friends. It’s inevitable.

File photo of Vin Scully as he was announced as the grand marshall of the Tournament of Roses, Pasadena, Calif., Sept. 5, 2013 | Photo courtesy Pasadena Tournament of Roses, St. George News

Yet somehow, I never thought I would have to face the loss of a voice that shaped my years from childhood to adulthood. A voice that was like that of a best friend, telling me to pull up a chair and spend an afternoon together. One that I would sneak under sheets with a light and a transistor radio to keep my parents from knowing I stayed up to listen or snuck a walkman into class to hear that voice in March for the first Spring Training game – more of a signal to me than flowers or showers that spring had come. 

Somehow, we all thought Vin Scully would live forever. But no one does. Not even the greatest among us.  

Scully, who was the voice of the Dodgers for generations – from Brooklyn to Los Angeles and from Robinson to Koufax to Garvey to Hershieser to Kershaw – passed away Tuesday night at age 94. He was the voice of the Dodgers for 67 years. 

Granted, there aren’t many connections between Scully and St. George or Utah. The local legend of baseball, Bruce Hurst, had many of his moments called by Scully from being called  “crafty” to the moment where a World Series ring slipped from his fingers and got past Buckner

Vin Scully seen in his first year as broadcaster with the then-Brooklyn Dodgers in 1950 | Photo courtesy of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, St. George News

Whether those connections seemed tenuous, Scully’s voice echoed through the West like the Pony Express thanks to radio waves traveling through the ionosphere. In the days before the internet and ESPN, the powerful radio signals of the Dodger Radio Network could be heard from the Pacific to Missouri.

Famous broadcaster Bob Costas once talked about driving with his parents from St. Louis to the West Coast and hearing Scully’s voice the whole way. 

Beyond that, Scully’s role as a national voice of the game on NBC in the 1980s also echoed through Southern Utah’s red hills. 

With that, it would be hard to find many people locally who didn’t know who Scully was, let alone so many he had touched. One woman’s obituary published in June in St. George News even mentioned him. “Vin Scully’s signature phrase, ‘It’s time for Dodger Baseball,’ was music to her ears,” the obituary for Cedar City-native Dorothy Beckstrom said. 

My father-in-law, who also recently passed, talked to me often about the connection he had to me with his love of baseball and hearing Scully’s voice growing up.

Scully also connected me to my own father, an immigrant from Great Britain who learned baseball along with his boys by watching and listening to Scully and many car trips to Dodger Stadium. The only time I have ever seen my father, the model of the stoic British gentleman, jump for joy in our living room was the moment Scully yelled “She is gone” as Kirk Gibson hobbled a home run to right in the 1988 World Series.  

Some people may point to a favorite music singer or group as being the soundtrack of their life, but Vin Scully was mine. He put baseball to words like Shakespeare put words to romance and tragedy. 

His brilliance was giving the right words at the right time and also knowing the time to say nothing. His greatest calls, including Hank Aaron’s record-breaking home run and even one of football’s greatest moments (Montana to Clark), consisted mostly of silence and letting the crowd do the talking. 

In a file photo, Vin Scully with Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, Calif., Sept. 22, 2016 | Photo by Jon Soohoo/Los Angeles Dodgers, St. George News

When people ask me who taught me to be a journalist, I will certainly point out people like some of my best journalism professors in college. But ultimately, I will always say Vin Scully taught me to be a journalist. 

He never cheered from the press box and would always give just the facts and tell things as they were. He wouldn’t make moments any more than they were, or any less. Even while employed by the Dodgers, he wouldn’t take a side. I go into every story hoping I could cover it like Scully covered baseball. At my desk at work, I have a picture of Scully with another idol of mine, Spider-Man creator Stan Lee.  

So for me, this isn’t just the loss of some baseball announcer. This is a heart-stricken loss of a father-figure and a best friend.

I had the distinct honor once of having coffee with Scully. It had actually been arranged for Scully to meet with “The Read-Aloud Handbook” author Jim Trelease but I was invited to come along and also cover it for the local newspaper in Pacific Palisades, California, on a warm January 1997 day.

The meeting was chronicled a few years ago on the National Public Radio program “The Story.”

An image of the front of the Feb. 6, 1997 Palisadian-Post sports section featuring a story on Vin Scully authored by the author of this story | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

Sitting at a coffee shop owned by Los Angeles Lakers player Vlade Divac and his wife, Trelease related as a kid in Brooklyn listening to Scully.

But the thing is, with Scully you didn’t have to ask, “What was it like to try to ski with Jackie Robinson?” or any other question. You just let him talk. Between Trelease – who passed away himself last Thursday – and myself, we perhaps said a total of two things. Scully just did all the talking with a mind full of what would be a history book to so many others. 

They say sometimes it’s not a good thing to meet your heroes. And without naming names, I can say there were many in sports, politics and other fields I grew up admiring who proved to be far from heroic praise in person.

But I’m delighted to say that friendly, warm person you heard coming into your room from a stadium beyond during the “Game of the Week” was not a mask or an act. That was who Scully really was. He greeted us and talked with us like we had always been his friend. Because, in a way, he was always ours. 

To this day, I don’t remember if it was a half hour of my time or a lifetime – only that it was priceless. 

A letter received by the author from Vin Scully in 1997 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

I’ve shaken hands with celebrities, governors and presidents. Yet none measure up to the day I sat for coffee with Scully. That could be why the tears are flowing right now.

After my story was published, Scully did something he didn’t have to do. He sent me a complimentary letter. 

“Many thanks for the kind article,” Scully said. “All your efforts are greatly appreciated.” 

I still get letters and e-mails complimenting articles and of course an equal share of not-so-complimentary letters. But I am positive none will ever top that one from Scully. 

So with the heaviest of hearts, it’s time for me to return the favor. 

Thank you, Vin Scully, for the kind, generous soul you gave to all of us and for letting us pull up a chair to spend a couple of games with you. All your efforts can’t be appreciated enough.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.

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