I wanted to pick up my phone Monday and call Vin Scully .
The Dodgers! The Yankees! The World Series! The stories!
The best broadcaster in baseball history was a historian, delighted to share what he had witnessed over the decades of his decorated career, not as impressed with his accomplishments as he was with the opportunity to illuminate his craft.
In 2017, the year after he retired, Scully told me how he might have called Justin Turner’s walkoff home run in the National League championship series.
In 2020, amid a pandemic in which games went on without fans and broadcasts included recordings of crowd noise, Scully told me how he and the Dodgers had once faked crowd noise on a 1968 broadcast.
In 2021, when the Dodgers and San Francisco Giants clashed in the division series, Scully told me why he considered the decisive game “the most important game in the history of their rivalry.”
Who would know better? Scully had grown up in New York when both teams played there. The red-headed kid would grab some crackers, and sometimes a glass of milk, and crawl under the four-legged radio in the living room, falling in love with the roar of the crowd.