Here is where we add your Vin Scully experiences to share with others:

Nov. 11, 2024:

In Chapter Five of “Perfect Eloquence,” focused on connections, we talked about how in August of 2011 Scully came on the air holding a chocolate chip cookie. This is how we captured it:

Here is a deeper dive into that connection from none other than Marti Squyres, whose friend tracked us down at a book event and presented her a signed copy:

Each Spring when baseball returns, so would our friend, Vin Scully. You hear his voice, and everything was suddenly right with the world. As a little girl I grew up loving baseball and my home town Los Angeles Dodgers, and listened intently to the man calling the games.

In 2007, I suddenly thought … Vinny could retire soon … I need to make him some cookies! I’ve loved to bake since I was young and I would bake in bulk for my nephews and their high school and college baseball and soccer teams, for Tommy Lasorda and the boys, way back when, and for my other favorite teams and players. 

I baked my first batch of cookies for Vin, delivered the final game of the season in 2007, along with a note explaining who I was, including contact info in order to appear very transparent. After all I am bringing edibles to someone who has no idea who I am!

A phone call from Vin ensued the next day thanking me for the cookies, and what started off as a simple batch of chocolate chunk cookies snowballed into 10 years worth baking all kinds of treats for Vin, which he ultimately shared with his booth mates, media, his family, especially the grandkids!

Once Vin told me how many people were partaking in my baked goods, I thought: I have to make more and make them special! So I was bringing treats three to four times a season (his final year broadcasting in 2016 I made something every month).

I would coordinate what I was making with a holiday like 4th of July or Father’s Day or an event like a Vin Bobblehead Night. And I was way beyond making just cookies but now doing cakes, cupcakes, cake pops, and molded candy in the shape of microphones and baseball gloves.

One item, for instance,  that he said his grandkids especially adored were rose shaped cupcakes, made after it was announced during the season that Vin was going to be the Grand Marshal of the upcoming New Year’s Day Rose Parade.

In 2011, towards the end of August, around the time Vin would usually announce his coming back for the following season, I delivered cookies early in the day to a game I was not attending that night, instead going out with friends. But I wanted to exert some friendly pressure and in my note to Vin wrote: Consider these a bribe to return to the booth next season.

I was shocked when I returned home that night to pick up messages from friends saying Vin was talking about me and my cookies on TV that evening as he confirmed his return for the 2012 season.

A similar situation occurred a couple years later when Vin announced his return for the following season on the video screen between innings of the game. I was in attendance that night and had brought treats to him as well. I had a hunch he was going to make an announcement.

He was asked by a reporter the next day during a press conference discussing his return if “that lady” had brought him anything the night before like she had in the past, and Vin replied that I had — and set about describing what I had made! On both these occasions I was interviewed by the sports anchors at two of our local stations about the baking of my bribes! Ha!

Early on Vin always sent a lovely note of thanks for each delivery, I have those framed, hanging in my workroom in an area dedicated to my sports teams. Later on Vin would call, I usually was not home, so I have 16 phone messages of thanks, recorded.

Vin would always invite my husband Phil and I to please stop by the booth and pay him a visit, we did on a couple occasions, an hour or so prior to a game, but we really never wanted to bother him. A couple times he insisted having his picture taken with us, one of the times his wife Sandi was there and we had a group shot.

Vin would always say to me: What can I do for you to thank you for your kindness? And I would always respond: Just keep coming back!

After Vin’s retirement, we kept in touch. I would send a quick email usually around a holiday or his birthday to let him know that Phil and I were thinking about him and sending our best to he and his wife. Again I would receive an email of thanks and his blessings in return. 

Vin is the greatest announcer the game has ever known, there will never be anyone ever again like him. But more importantly is his warmth and kindness as a human being.

It was an unbelievable honor to have known this man through my little gesture of baking cookies. It is absolutely one of the highlights of my life. 

And just for the record: My livelihood is not baking, just a hobby and something I like to do for family and friends. I am actually a costumer/costume designer for TV!

******

July 13, 2024:

I met a 7-year-old boy around 2006 named Evan Hughes, the biggest sports fan I had ever met at that age (other than me, LOL!) Evan’s parents, Lynne and Kelly, are the CEOs of a wonderful organization I’ve been involved with since 2004 – Comfort Zone Camp – a non-denominational camp for kids who’ve lost a parent or sibling.

I started attending CZC as a volunteer in 2004 when at the time the camps in New Jersey — I would fly from LA to NJ because that’s how important this camp is to me — were exclusively for kids who lost someone on 9/11. They’re headquartered in Richmond, VA, with satellite camps around the country, including California.

I developed a friendship with Evan due to our love of sports in general (including the one and only hapless, helpless & hopeless New York Jets) as he and his sister grew up in the camp environment in Virginia, then New York. Evan and his parents and sister Jamie are now dear friends of me and my wife Cindy.

Evan channeled his love for sports in such a positive way. In middle school and in high school, he did play-by-play of his school’s sports teams — baseball, football, basketball and volleyball along with others. As I followed him over the years, I knew this kid had a special future in anything related to sports – especially sportscasting. But on top of all this, he’s simply a good guy.

After high school in the Richmond area, Evan went to Virginia Tech University. His goal was to get into sports broadcasting. So, learning of his plans, I contacted Vin and asked if he’d mind sending a note of encouragement to Evan. He said he’d be delighted to that. I forwarded Evan’s contact, and a week or two later, I received the coolest phone call from Evan, who was almost in tears. He shared with me a note he received from, as he put it, “the great Vin Scully”! (The handwritten note is posted above).

I thanked Vin profusely for what he did. Reaching out to Evan is something the young man will never forget.

But wait, there’s more.

Evan continued to hone his craft, not only doing different sports at Virginia Tech, but during the summers in of all places, St. Cloud, Minnesota. While friends of his probably spent their summers at the beach or in the mountains having a good old time, Evan was hired by the St. Cloud Rox, a summer collegiate baseball team, to do their play-by-play. He spent three summers there. I’m sure there were candidates from within Minnesota or neighboring states who applied for the play-by-play position, but the Rox chose Evan. It was invaluable experience.

As he continued to do play by play or analyst of various Virginia Tech Hokie sports events, Evan kept getting better and better. This was validated his senior year when he won the Jim Nantz Award as the best collegiate student broadcaster in the country. Geez, how cool is that!

So, of course I had to contact Vin to give him an update on the young man who he wrote such a wonderful note to four years earlier. I gave Vin Evan’s contact information, and yet again, that wonderful soul of a human, sent Evan another note.

Again, Evan was blown out of the water when hearing from Vin.

Vin and I were acquaintances, at best. He was always incredibly cordial and friendly with me as he was, I’m sure, with anyone who stopped by to see him in the Dodger Stadium Press Box. Still, for him to take the time to send these wonderful messages to a young man, an up-and-coming broadcaster, well, it just validates what a special human being Vin Scully was.

Tom Klimasz
Leland, N.C.

Note: On Aug. 3, ’22, Tom posted a personal remembrance of Scully upon his passing, sharing encounters they had when he worked on game stats in the KTLA-Channel TV booth with Scully at Dodger Stadium and in San Diego, as well as once at Shea Stadium in New York. Tom also recalled sending Scully a congratulatory note on his retirement and, as a thank you, had a Mass Intention said for him at American Martyrs Catholic Church in Manhattan Beach. A few weeks later, Tom received the note above.

******

June 6, 2025:

This entry comes not as someone who knew Vin Scully from the press box or the broadcast booth, but as someone who knew him in the kitchen of his home, as the father of my close friend Mike.

That’s how I first knew Mr. Scully — and how I’ll always remember him.

Mike and I were close friends growing up and though our 30s until his tragic passing in a helicopter accident. It was one of the hardest moments of my life. It was a devastating loss.

But through it, Mr. Scully was there — not as a public figure, not as a legend, but as a grieving father who stood beside us, in faith, in friendship, and in love. We leaned on each other, and we got through it together, held up by our shared Catholic community and the enduring strength of family ties.

What made Mr. Scully so special was that he never carried himself like a celebrity — not once. He was humble, warm, and sincerely interested in those around him. When I was in my twenties, I would visit the Scully home —sometimes just to hang out with Mike, sometimes for family gatherings. I can still picture us standing around in the kitchen, chatting. And there was Mr. Scully, always asking me how my announcing career was going in Pro Beach Volleyball.

He wasn’t making small talk. He really wanted to know. He’d ask about the cities we were in, the people I met, the places I’d seen. His curiosity made me reflect on what I was doing, and helped me realize something important: The essence of my job wasn’t just calling the game, it was connecting with people, in their towns, on their turf. That perspective became the foundation for the next 20 years of my professional life on the road with Pro Beach Volleyball.

And it came from him — from a conversation in the kitchen, from someone who understood that storytelling begins and ends with people.

Later in life, in 2021, I took on a new chapter as CEO and President at Notre Dame High School. On the very first morning of my official first day, I was deep in conversation when the executive assistant came down the hall and interrupted me.

“You need to take this call,” she said. “Vin Scully is on the line.”

I stopped everything. Of course I did. And what a joy it was to pick up the phone and hear his voice offering his congratulations, his encouragement, and his friendship.

A friend’s father calling to wish me well. That’s who he was.

Now, we did have one last, playful debate. I still called him “Mr. Scully,” as I had since I was a teenager. He insisted that in my 50s, I should start calling him “Vin.” I told him, “You’ll always be Mike’s dad to me. Kevin, Erin, Kelly, Todd, Catherine’s dad. That means you’ll always be Mr. Scully.”

He laughed. I promised I’d try harder to call him Vin. He agreed to let it slide when I slipped. And as the call ended, I said it: “Goodbye, Vin!”

To the Scully family, thank you for sharing your father with all of us — not just as a legend behind the microphone, but as a man of faith, humility, and extraordinary kindness. He touched lives in ways that will never be captured in a highlight reel or a stat sheet.

He was, to many, a voice. But to me, he was Mr. Scully — and it was an honor to know him. May he rest in peace.

Sam Laganà
Pacific Palisades, Calif.

*********

July 27, 2024:

A conversation with Andy Hill, a member of three NCAA basketball title teams at UCLA and co-author with John Wooden of the 2001 book “Be Quick — But Don’t Hurry: Finding Success in the Teachings of A Lifetime” (Simon & Schuster), sent a long a story that Eric Neal once wrote about the legendary Bruins basketball coach for ESPN.com titled “E-Ticket: Forever Coach,” and then offered these insights:

It makes sense for anyone who grew up in Los Angeles to consider Coach Wooden and Vin Scully as always being together.

I first met Vin back when I was at UCLA as an athletic director at the beach club in Santa Monica. I played a lot of ping-pong and in the men’s locker was a staircase right above where we played. I’m playing one day and I heard this voice outside the locker room. And there was only one person it could be. I didn’t even have to see him. That’s not possible with anyone else.

I introduced myself to Vin and — as everyone says — he couldn’t have been more gracious.

I can remember as a kid watching in those days when the Dodgers only had the nine road games in San Francisco televised back to L.A., and Vin is there when there was a 48-minute fog delay. And he told a story for 48 minutes. I was spellbound.

But now that I’m in the storytelling business, and writing a book about it, I wondered how I got into this mindset. I realized I had the greatest professor in the history of the world in Vin Scully. We also had Chick Hearn and Dick Enberg.

Today we live in a society where two weeks ago is old news, but we have to remind ourselves we had the opportunity to watch and listen to these broadcasters who were not just humble men, but the greatest at their craft that we’ve ever seen. I don’t think they understood why they may have been so great at what they did, but that didn’t make them better than anyone else. How can you be so good and so humble? I include my best friend, Bill Walton, on that category.

Forget what you see on the outside. Deep down, they were so positive and wanted to make everyone feel better who came in contact with them. It was a testament to who they were.

The story I sent is, to me, the best written about Coach Wooden, and it was done right about his 95th birthday. When Coach Wooden died about four years after that, it was a very emotional time for me. I probably hadn’t listened to the radio in my car in maybe three or four years, but there I was, near the Stephen Wise Temple, driving down Beverly Glen and for some reason, I turned the radio on. I heard someone who seemed to know Coach Wooden and was talking about him. I couldn’t figure out who it was.

By the time I got to the little market I was heading to on Sunset, he says: “And I was talking to Coach in his den along with Andy Hill …”

And then I realized it was Eric Neal who wrote the story. I was impressed how this writer was able to keep his emotions in check while I was not able to do so at that point. It was so wild, I had to call him.

We talked a bit and I asked him: How did you get through that interview without getting emotional? And here’s how Vin Scully enters the story.

Eric said: “The only other person I was every impressed by during an interview, other than Coach Wooden, was Vin Scully. One of the questions I asked him was about how, when he was broadcasting the Sandy Koufax perfect game in 1965, and everyone is caught up in the moment, you could be so centered and sound so calm.

“Vin said: ‘I have a trick. I have this old friend of mine, and when I’m in this situation, I picture him and then I just describe the game to him.’

I told Eric that was such a great story. And here’s what’s weird. Eric added: “When I was on that radio interview talking about Coach Wooden, I felt I was talking to you.”

*******

June 23, 2024:

My daughter gave me your book for Father’s Day. She knew I was a big fan of Vin Scully, so it was a perfect gift. I read your preface and I understood the purpose and process for writing the “an appreciation” of Vin Scully. It brought memories of an event that happened to me in 2003 that I thought you just might appreciate.

I had written an essay earlier that year called “Thoughts of a Sports Fan.” I had no purpose for writing that essay except for my own gratification. I did not send it to anyone or to anywhere. It was simply my opinion of my three greatest sports heroes. It was centered on three achievements: the athlete (Ted Williams), the coach (John Wooden) and the media (Vin Scully).

About that time, I was heavily involved as a Board member of the Catholic Education Foundation. We were always trying to raise money to help finance scholarships for minority students to attend Catholic schools. But I knew that Vin Scully was Catholic and attended a parish in Pacific Palisades.

I had never met or spoken to Vin Scully. However, just knowing his character, I decided to write a truly ‘cold call’ letter requesting some financial support to the CEF. I enclosed that essay, for no other reason than for him to recognize that I consider him to be the GOAT when it comes to sports media.

Less than a week later, I received a handwritten letter from Vin Scully himself along with a $1,000 contribution to the CEF. That letter hangs proudly on my wall. In the last sentence of your preface, you state it was your “attempt to show Vin Scully’s impact on others, based on the way he lived”.  My own experience fits perfectly with your very successful “attempt.” Vin Scully was truly a great man, a gift from God.

Tom Barron
Los Angeles

Note: Tom included the essay he wrote about Vin. It started:

As an avid sports fan since my early youth beginning in the 1940’s, I have often thought about and discussed with friends what makes up a true “sports hero.” My list is three, and justified as follows.

After writing about Ted Williams and John Wooden, he wrote about Scully:

Having grown up in Southern California, I had the opportunity to read and listen to the best of the best. Los Angeles sports’ fans have had the privilege to listen to the finest announcer, in any sport, for 45 years thus far: his name, Vin Scully. … Baseball is not a sport which lends itself to a constant flow of action. … A baseball game is a story waiting to be told. And no one can tell that story better than Vin Scully. … Whether it was an important game during the heat of a pennant race or the progress of a Sandy Koufax no-hitter, listening to that story unfold through the captivating words of Vin Scully was pure pleasure. Scully could take a 14–0 rout and keep you listening. But in a 1-0 game in the ninth inning, you are on the edge of your chair as Scully verbally delivers each pitch. His affable, easy-going way with words makes for an enjoyable listening style. His knowledge of the game, the individual player’s ability to make or not make a play, the decision process that goes through a manager’s mind, all contribute to a feeling he is talking directly to you – and, of course, he is. It has been said baseball is a game of statistics. However, Vin Scully goes beyond that realm and incorporates the data into an ebb and flow of events, from the first pitch (“so settle back and relax….), to the game, to the series, to the season.
Simply said, Vin Scully is a storyteller: The best at his trade. And for that he is one of my most admired sports heroes.

*****

Aug. 30, 2024:

Longtime Daily Breeze sportswriter and colleague Dan McLean shares this essay:

I can’t claim to have known Vin Scully as well as many reporters, who drew closer to him either because of more years covering the Dodgers or more time spent working on Scully stories.

 Of course, I grew up listening to him. Everyone in Southern California did. He was certainly the finest baseball announcer working; arguably — maybe — the best of all time. He had an encyclopedic library of stories in his head and could call upon one of them at any moment, triggered by something he’d just witnessed or a player’s name.

We usually left him alone during games, unless a writer had a specific question. Then he or she’d ask one of the public relations people to ask Vin during a commercial break and the writer would always get a thoughtful answer.

Like most in the press box, I arranged a couple of meetings with him in his booth when working on a certain story.

Once it was because Mike Marshall — the first, the great relief pitcher — said his wife had listened to all the road games on the trip and Scully was frequently criticizing Marshall, who the previous season (1974) had set a record for most appearances in a season with a remarkable 106 relief appearances. He was an All-Star and won the Cy Young Award. On the road trip in question, 1975 in Marshall’s final full season with the Dodgers, his innings pitched dropped to 58.  Marshall, who earned an advanced degree in kinesiology, knew what his body was capable of doing, perhaps better than any other pitcher ever.

Scully explained that he had simply pointed out on the trip the number of recent games Marshall hadn’t entered perhaps once or twice and in no way intended to accuse Marshall of malingering. But he said he could understand how a wife, listening and hearing her husband’s name mentioned might take it that way. And he understood as well that I had an interesting story I had to write.

The other time I got a private interview with Scully came when I learned Walt Alston was retiring and Vin was very helpful.

But the best interview with Scully was obtained and done by my sons in the mountains on vacation before the 1986 season, when I was no longer covering the Dodgers and my sons were 9 and 7.

We were staying in Arrowhead, where we rented a cabin with a kitchen, and had driven to a market in Blue Jay for supplies. I was discussing which kind of bread to buy with my wife when Jeff, the older son and a big baseball fan — Brent liked it more for the hot dogs and peanuts — was pulling at my sleeve, saying “Dad, Dad.” I asked him to wait a second, when he said, “But Dad, isn’t that Vin Scully?”

I looked up and told him I thought he was right. I excused myself from my wife and approached Vin with the boys, introducing myself and mentioning I used to cover the team. Vin said, “Of course, I remember you, Dan.”

Then I introduced the boys by name, and Jeff immediately started asking Vin questions. And Scully, undoubtedly there to shop himself, must have given the two of them at least 20 minutes of chatting. I just stepped back and let them have their time. Brent had some questions, too, but Jeff was trying to overwhelm Scully; without success.

Because that’s who Scully was. He had a job he loved and he was baseball’s greatest salesman. A woman likely in her fifties approached and asked Scully if she could speak to him for a minute. He said that of course she could, but just give him a little more time to talk to the boys, then it would be her turn. She waited and when the boys were done, he gave her as much time as she wanted.

I wonder how many times these things happened to Scully? But I knew his reaction would always be the same. He didn’t walk into the store near his vacation home announcing, “It’s time for supermarket shopping,” then offer an anecdote about butter.

No, Vin Scully was never there to sell himself. He had a wonderful job that he loved and had a wonderful time being a wonderful person to anyone who wanted a little of his time. To him, it was part of the job.

Editor’s Note: In an August, 2024 piece on MLB.com by Anthony Castrovince about Mike Marshall’s lasting impact on the game, it includes the paragraph:

Marshall developed a reputation as a curmudgeon. He wouldn’t sign autographs for kids because he felt they should be idolizing teachers, not ballplayers. He was unafraid to offer unsolicited advice about where fielders should be positioned (he once said his ’74 season would have been even better had the Dodgers listened to him). He felt the press — and even the legendary broadcaster Vin Scully — mocked him. His opinions and methods alienated him.

“That entire year,” Marshall eventually told Sports Illustrated of his Cy Young season, “was not a joy for me.”

******

June 16, 2024:

A Father’s Day post by Steve Leblang from his website “Leblanguage.com” titled “A book my dad would have loved. I know I did.”:

Father’s Days aren’t easy for guys like moi. No kids of my own, and this is the tenth that mine hasn’t been around to even try to wish those greetings to. Truth be told, in practicality it’s been even longer. My dad suffered what turned out to a be a fatal episode in a short-staffed rehabilitation center on the Saturday night before Father’s Day 2014, being returned to a regular recovery room instead of the intensive care he required after a procedure has been performed on him earlier that evening. He was without oxygen for more than four minutes, and while his body managed to survive another few weeks, he never spoke another word.

My dad was far from perfect and was never someone who took well to Southern California. But the first day he set foot in Los Angeles, my mom’s cousin took us to Dodger Stadium that very evening, where he was as wide-eyed and as engaged as I had ever seen him. He was watching his beloved Dodgers wear home uniforms for the first time in more than two decades. He saw Manny Mota tie the all-time record for pinch-hits. He tasted his first Dodger Dog. He had never met my mom’s cousin until that day, but it bonded them for the rest of their lives.

He didn’t much enjoy the rest of our stay that summer, but on every occasion he’d perk up when we’d tune to the Dodgers’ radio station and he’d be engrossed in Vin Scully’s play-by-play.

It was the first chance I had to hear Scully do that, as this was several years before he went national and well before out-of-town broadcasts were available. I’d sit with him and get just as engrossed. I was 19 that year, and never bonded with my dad as much until that point.

After my dad suffered that episode that ultimately killed him, I was tasked with keeping vigil on him while he lay comatose in a Queens hospital, relieving my sister of the burden she had had for months while taking a needed family vacation. I was not happy about being unable to directly tell my dad that despite his many flaws and ultimately his failures, I still loved him very much and remembered those first nights where we listened to Scully together in a dank Santa Monica motel room. But I did have a phone and by that time an MLB.com subscription. I scheduled my visits to coincide as often as possible with Dodgers’ broadcasts; they happened to be back East for a portion of the week I spent with him so there were several chances for that. I placed the phone next to his ear and sat with him. I obviously can’t be sure he processed anything; but I know I felt him squeeze my hand a couple of times after the Dodgers got a key out or scored.

Shortly after he passed, I shared this story with one of his longtime friends when news of his passing finally reached him.  My family was quite dismissive of this friend of my dad’s; my mom in particular detested his cheapness and his obsession with tuna fish sandwiches.  But “Tuna Fish” did share with me a story I never knew about my dad: 

He loved listening to Scully perhaps more than anything else.  So much so, that on the day when Scully announced the memorable 1951 playoff finale with the New York Giants, he was glued to his larger-size radio which perched on the open window sill of his second story apartment.  When the Giants’ Bobby Thomson hit that fateful home run off Ralph Branca to rally the Giants to a pennant-clinching, come-from-behind victories, his shriek could be heard through the neighborhood and the crash of the radio onto the concrete below after he flung it out the window in disgust resonated just as loudly.  It was apparently legendary among those that grew up with him even lo so many decades later.   My dad was also 19 when this happened.

I’m not sure that qualifies as coming full circle, but I know that was a story that stuck with me.  I’ve never quite broken a radio, but I’ve thrown a remote or two in disgust in my day.

I suspect you may have some similar sort of story, or at least be reminded of someone who does. “Perfect Eloquence” will definitely inspire you to at least think about yours, if not write about it as I did.

****

Barry Zepel, the retired longtime Loyola Marymount University sports information director, recalls when he was a 19-year-old at East Los Angeles College, he got a chance to do a story for the Alhambra Post-Advocate on Vin Scully and Jerry Doggett, who, at the point, had been together 17 seasons. Zepel found the piece posted on July 5, 1973 in his archives and passed it along.

Then-Dodgers publicity director Fred Claire says in the story: “They’re the finest radio team in all of baseball. Their knowledge of the game, plus their ability to make their words enjoyable in the listening audience are great factors in selling the Dodgers to the public.”

Among the quotes from the 46-year-old Scully in the piece:

== Advice to aspiring broadcasters:

“I would say go to a college or university that features at least a campus radio station. I would advise that kind of a person to do as much as he possibly can in polishing the art of self-expression. He could write for the school newspaper and magazine, get into elocution, oratory contests, debating and dramatic. Anything that helps a man express what’s going on in his mind. And then from there, hopefully he’ll be able to get into the business because he is well equipped.”

== On the trend of former athletes getting into the broadcast business — including the recent leap of retired Dodgers pitchers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, with various results:

“I don’t pay the bills so I can’t afford to have any attitude. They’re working and they’re feeding their families and that’s fine. It’s too bad for the guy who has spent 20 years in the minor leagues or has tried to work his way in the business. But since I’m not paying the bill, I have no right to criticize.”

== On his career:

“I try hard to be myself at all times when I’m broadcasting a game. I was advised by Red Barber, my mentor and almost my father, to make sure that you are always just yourself when talking to people on and off the air … After 24 years in broadcasting, I still get goose bumps describing the action on the field. The only part of broadcasting I dislike is the traveling. But there isn’t much I can do about that.”

******

January 14, 2025:

Vin Scully and my life were entwined. It was some kind of miracle that I discovered the Brooklyn Dodgers while living on my family farm in northeastern Colorado in 1949 when I was 9 years old. It was a miracle because God moved the Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1958, and I moved there in 1965 and was able to listen to, watch and attend games for the following.60 years.

My favorite team was and still is the Brooklyn Dodgers, and I know I started listening to Vin Scully announce games with the 1955 World Series. I told my Mom I was sick, and I stayed home from school to listen to Vinny tell us how Johnny Podres shut out the Yankees and won the seventh game of the Series. I was 15 and mesmerized by Scully. I still remember him describing how my favorite first baseman of all time, Gil Hodges, knocked in both runs to win the game, 2-0.

Later, in 1958, when the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, I had just graduated from high school. In the summer, I know I heard Vinny call a game on KFI radio in Los Angeles. We picked up the signal in Colorado, and I heard Sandy Koufax win one of his first games out of the mouth of Vinny. I was hooked.

In the following summers of 1960, ’61 and ’62, I heard Vinny many times calling games that we picked up in Colorado. In 1962, when Sandy suffered from his famous “Renaud’s phenomenon”  finger, the Dodgers blew a big lead to end up being tied by the hated San Francisco Giants. The Dodgers had to play the Giants in a three-game playoff. In the third game, they were leading 4-2 in the ninth inning. I worked for the Sterling (Colo.) Journal Advocate, and the editorial room was full of Yankee fans. I was so nervous I hopped in my car and drove around to listen to Vinny tell how  the Giants scored four runs in the top of the ninth to win the deciding game, 6-4. Vinnie called the game perfectly, never giving excuses for the Dodgers, always calling it as it was.

I went into the Army a month after this game in the fall of 1962, and in the fall of 1963, I was stationed in Seoul, Korea, and heard Vinny call a game at 3 a.m. He was describing the fourth and deciding game of the World Series when the Dodgers beat the Yankees four straight, as Sandy won 2-1.

I came back to the U.S. and was stationed in Oakland, and attended  a infamous Sunday game on Aug. 22, 1965, when Juan Marichal clubbed Johnny Roseboro over the head with a bat. I enjoyed Vin’s impartial call of that ridiculous situation on my transistor radio. I remember Sept. 9, 1965, when Sandy threw the perfect game against the Chicago Cubs. Vinny called every inning – impeccably, of course.

Since then, I heard thousands of games called by Vin. Everyone appreciated his stories, his great wit and his incredible knack at calling a game. But what I appreciated most of all was his personality that just came over the airwaves on radio or television. You could not but love this man and love every single sentence out of his mouth. I even listened to his Union 76 commercials, and I hate commercials.

I am old myself now, but it does not matter because there will never be another Vincent Edward Scully.

Don Lechman
Torrance, Calif.

******

June 10, 2024:

I am 75 years old and began listening to Vin on the Dodger broadcasts in 1958. I thoroughly enjoyed your book “Perfect Eloquence.” It was nostalgic and at times emotional as I recalled my own days of listening on the transistor.  Many nights I fell sleep to his magical voice.

I have a little “Vin” story of my own. We bought a nice racehorse at auction and he looked like he’d be a runner. My partners and I were having a tough time coming up with a name. Since it was Vinny’s last year at the mic, I suggested we name the horse Vin Scully. I knew we’d need his OK though I had no way of contacting him.

I saw TJ Simers email address on one of his columns and figured he would have a way to get our request to Vin. So I emailed Simers and to my surprise he responded quickly. He said: ‘Why don’t you name the horse ‘Page Two’ after his column. I told him I really liked his work and he was my second-favorite writer, but there were another 20 columnists tied for first. Ha Ha!

Simers reached Scully and told me he was flattered but preferred we not name the colt after him. He told Simers that if the horse was named Vin Scully, the rear end would probably cross the finish line in front of the head. 
After reading all your essays, that sure seems like something Vin would have said. I think it worked out well. Our horse got hurt and never made it to the races. I think I can now name a future horse after Vin as he has passed.

Ed Cree
Palm Desert, via Baldwin Hills and La Canada
USC Class of ’72

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Aug. 15, 2024:

Although I never met Vin Scully, I felt, through his broadcasts, that he had been a guest in my home thousands of times. Except for my parents, he was my most significant role model. Professionally, he was the most credible on-air personality I’ve ever heard.

His strong belief in thorough preparation, how to fulfill responsibilities, and how to work with others were all valuable lessons. Those lessons began for me as a child when the Dodgers moved to L.A., continued through my 40 year career and, astonishingly, persisted when he was still broadcasting after I retired. He had an amazing ability to keep listeners fully informed about the game even while telling fascinating stories. Most important of all, I appreciated that he always seemed to be speaking directly to me and never made me feel like a distant bystander hearing two people in the broadcast booth emphasize talking to each other.

On a personal level, I really admired how he always treated people with courtesy and dignity. I once heard an interview where he expressed a desire to be most remembered as a “good man.” It was truly gratifying to read so many examples in Perfect Eloquence of Vin living up to that ideal.

On Page 207, John Ireland referred to the last lesson I learned from Vin. It was the Dr. Seuss quote during his final broadcast where Vin said “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” I think of it often when remembering important people and experiences in my life.

I’m grateful to Vin Scully for his positive influence, and to Perfect Eloquence for helping me “smile because it happened.”

Frank Bollinger 
Thousand Oaks

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June 10, 2024:

I am a Michigan native and grew up with Ernie Harwell on my transistor radio as a teen in the early ’60s and of course a long time love of baseball and the Detroit Tigers. I landed in Los Angeles in the summer of ’72, and in ’73 as an intern for SavOn Drugs I began following the Dodgers because of the Michigan connection – Steve Garvey and Ron Perranoski. Vin Scully was a superb bonus but in my mind and heart Ernie Harwell was still the ONE!

After graduation from pharmacy school in June of 1974, I moved to LA permanently and became a full fledged Dodger fan. Wonderful years, great memories, eventually Gibby came in 1988 (oh, my, what a year) and always, always the dulcet, pear-shaped tones of the MASTER.

My family (my wife, a life-long Dodger fan from Torrance, and two kids) moved back to Michigan and of course I had to share with all my folks that, yes, Ernie was superb but ….. Vin Scully was one of one!
The deep warmth, hard-to-swallow moments and ‘oh my gosh’ smiles and laughs from your book are a gift that I am eternally grateful for. Thank you again ever so much!

Ed Keating
Grand Rapids, Mich.

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June 3, 2024:

I love the stories about Vin and all the wonderful memories shared about the voice of the Dodgers. Thank you so much for putting all of these reflections together to share the life of our Dodger legend Vin Scully. I had the privilege to attend Vin’s first game and last game at Dodger Stadium with Vin behind the mic. Thank you for your expertise in putting this tribute in print.
Jay Wilson
Dana Point

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Oct. 5, 2016:

David Wodnicki, a New York-based Microsoft Relationship Account Strategist who grew up in Redondo Beach and got his MBA from USC in 2001, has featured a post on his LinkedIn social media platform from 2016 called “Two Things Everyone Can Learn From Vin Scully.”

With his permission, here is an edited version of that post:

Listening to Vin’s soothing voice over the years has taught me two simple but very important things that has helped me throughout my career.
1. Tell stories
2. Be prepared
My two favorite sports memories happen to be both Vin Scully moments.

Many of the millennials were probably too young to remember when Vin had his memorable World Series call on Oct. 15, 1988. It is a good thing we have Youtube. I happened to be in a McDonald’s parking lot huddled around a 6-inch black and white television screen with rabbit ears, (antennas to make TV’s work in the 80’s). We just left my Grandmother’s house to get home in time for bed and we were listening to the game in the car. It was bottom of the 9th inning and I told my Dad to pull over somewhere – anywhere – that had a TV set so we can watch the end of the game. As we got off the highway we saw a bunch of people cheering outside a McDonald’s. As we approached we could see they were watching the Dodger game on what seemed to be the smallest TV in the world. It’s funny how an iPhone is even smaller and is the medium of choice for most people for entertainment purposes, but I digress.

My greatest sports memory comes from a random hot summer Sunday on Aug. 18, 2002 at Shea Stadium in New York.

Once a season I attend a baseball game. My cousin Ami called me and asked if I wanted to go the Dodgers-Mets game. At first I said no, because I wanted to watch Tiger Woods clinch his ninth Major Championship at the PGA. He swayed me when he said he had a press pass and that we most likely can get special access to the stadium. I don’t remember anything about the game. ZERO. I just now had to Google what happened so I can tell you the Dodgers beat the Mets 2-1 that day. (Here is the Retrosheet.org box score).

What I do remember is that when the game was over my cousin and I wandered around the stadium. We walked through the club house and met some players. Not going to lie, meeting Mike Piazza and Mo Vaughn was pretty exciting, but still wasn’t the most memorable part of my day.

The stadium was almost entirely empty and we were about to leave when we we stumbled upon a random suite with the final round of the PGA Championship playing in the background. As I turned to my cousin to say let’s stay here and watch the end, a very familiar voice said, “Gentlemen come pull up a chair and join us.”

I turned around and Vin Scully and his wife Sandy just asked us to watch golf with them.

My cousin and I then spent the next two hours sitting next to our idol listening to him give us a personal play by play of the PGA championship in an empty Shea Stadium. When Vin gives a broadcast it sounds like he is in your living room sharing stories. Sitting in front of him listening to him talk about how Tiger Woods was about to blow the PGA to Richard Beem and intertwining it with a story of the 1975 masters felt just like that. (A New York Times report of that final round is here).

Vin shared his famous call on the 18th and how Jack Nicklaus, Tom Weiskopf and Johnny Miller were all tied and how tense the moment was. He just painted the picture on CBS of what had taken place, and at that moment, he decided to take off his headset/microphone and not say a word for the next couple minutes. The silence helped build the suspense of one the greatest golf moments. It was the same silence that made his famous Kirk Gibson call that much more memorable.

As I walked out of Shea Stadium that day, I felt just like Gibson did when he was floating around those bases all those years ago. I was 8 years old when Kirk Gibson hit that home run … and on that day I fell in love with baseball and Vin Scully.

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Nov. 8, 2024:

Steve Yed writes:

Every March I would fly down to Florida and take my parents to Two Dodger exhibition games. They lived about an hour from Vero Beach. We had been going there since the ’70s.

After the game we spent some time talking to Jack Clark, the hitting coach for the Dodgers, and then Jim Tracy, the Dodger manager. Then we left.

We were passing around where broadcasting booths were bove home plate we noticed a crowd of people so we headed in that direction. About 25 people were standing there and Fernando Valenzuela walked out and I got him to sign a baseball. Then Rick Monday came out and I got him to sign the same ball.

Next a golf cart pulled up and put comes Vin Scully. He looks at the crowd and says: “If everyone acts like gentlemen I will sign for everyone, but why anybody would want my autograph I don’t know.”

He sat in the golf cart signed the same ball. We spoke probably
a paragraph or so and we left. He signed for everyone. That ball was on my shrine with my Dodgers helmet, Dodgers sign, Fernando bobblehead,
Lasorda bobblehead, Sandy Koufax autographed baseball, ceramic helmet, Kirk Gibson baseball card. World Champions Dodgers.

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April 13, 2025:

Jeff Merken, who grew up in Chatsworth and now live in the Bay Area, writes:

Like many I grew up listening to Vin Scully. I loved L.A. in the summer, listening in bed to Vin Scully when the Dodgers were home and Dick Enberg when the Angels were home, and during hockey season, listening to Bob Miller.

Boy was I lucky.

One summer — and I wish I could remember what year it was — it was one of those days when there was a hurricane off Mexico, so it was cloudy, hot and humid. I had the Dodgers game on during the day, and Vin starts saying how things have cooled down at Dodger Stadium and that there was a nice breeze blowing. He said the breeze was blowing off the lake behind center field.

I start thinking to myself: It hasn’t cooled down here. And what lake is there behind center field? What the heck is he talking about?

Then Scully says: You don’t believe me that it’s cooled down. And you don’t believe me that there is a nice breeze blowing. And you don’t believe that there is a lake behind center field.

Absolutely brilliant.

The other story, in 2003 it was my parents 50th anniversary. They had been Dodgers fans since the Dodgers moved to L.A. There were two things they loved about the Dodgers. Being Jewish they loved Sandy Koufax, and they loved Vin Scully.

For a year I tried any way I could to get in contact with Sandy Koufax to get an autographed ball for them. And I tried to get an autographed picture of Vin Scully.

I failed with Koufax, but a manila envelope comes and it’s an autographed picture of Vin Scully. When I gave it to them, it brought a tear to my dad’s eye.

My dad passed a way 10 years ago, but my mom is still in the house. I don’t live in the area, but whenever I go down to visit on the wall is the autographed picture of Vin Scully.

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October, 2025:

Joshua Dressler, a Distinguished University Professor Emeritus and Professor of Law Emeritus at The Ohio State University since 2001 who got his BA and JD in Political Science and Government at UCLA from 1965 to ’73, posted on LinkedIn:

I have just begun to read the book. Thanks for your work on it. A story: I grew up in L.A. a Dodger fan (actually, Brooklyn Dodger fan before they came to L.A. and, more, a Scully fan.
Because of him I decided I wanted to become a sportscaster. In high school, I wrote him and asked what I should major in, in college.
He wrote back, handwritten, postmarked Pittsburgh, and told me to get a liberal arts education. What other sportscaster would ever suggest that? None.
I took his advice but decided to go a different direction (lawyer; law professor). But I will never forget that letter.

Professor Dressler followed that up with an email:

Quite unhappily I must report that my Scully letter from Pittsburgh has been lost.  Somewhere in my travels over the years from L.A. to Minneapolis to Detroit to Sacramento to Columbus, I lost it.  It is quite upsetting to me.  Although it has nothing to do with Vinny, you will understand the connection with this story:
When I was 7 years old, I read E.B. White’s Stuart Little. Apparently, I cried hysterically when I finished the book because Stuart never found Margolo.  My mother decided to write White. I am not sure how she connected with him (I assume through the publisher), but her letter reached him. Months later he sent my mother/me a typewritten “final” chapter to Stuart Little in which Stuart and Margolo come together.  Imagine him going to that trouble.  Well, when my mother died and I went through her belongings, the letter was nowhere to be found. By then E.B. White had also died so I wrote to his estate and explained the situation. I wondered if he had made a carbon copy (remember those days?) of it and, somehow, it was still in his papers. They said they doubted it survived but, in any case, they (somewhat) nicely indicated that they were not going to look for it. So, it too has been lost.  The Dressler family is not good at keeping memorabilia.  Sigh.

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