Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully is set to retire at the end of the MLB season, and he is making the media rounds talking about the final days of his unmatched 67-year career. During an appearance on "The Dan Patrick Show" yesterday, Scully said he did not want to plan out what he said in his final broadcast, saying, "I’ve never planned." Scully: “I really don’t want to make a big deal out it because it’s already been made a big deal out of it. I’m appreciative, but I’m also embarrassed. I’ve never wanted to get out in front of the game, and for a long time I was able to keep that game center stage and I was the voice off in the wings. Now that it’s my last year ... it’s become kind of a big deal. It is embarrassing. Most appreciative, but embarrassing." He said his main goal is not to "breakdown on the air." Scully's last call will be on Oct. 2 as the Dodgers face the Giants, and he is “relying on the Giants and the Dodgers to making it a good game and an exciting game so I can do what I love to do: Keep the game out in front and I’ll hide behind it” (“The Dan Patrick Show,” 9/19). Scully today appeared on NPR's "Morning Edition" and said that he first became interested in baseball with the '36 Yankees-Giants World Series, so his final game "will be exactly 80 years to the day when I first discovered baseball." Scully said of his retirement, "I didn't feel that it would be right that I would try to continue broadcasting when I'm going to be 90, God willing, next year. ... The only reason that I would want to do baseball would be for some selfish reason, and I don't want to do that" ("Morning Edition," NPR, 9/20).
EMOTIONAL RESCUE: Scully participated in a nationwide conference call yesterday and described his expected emotions during his final week at Dodger Stadium. He said, "I’ve got them in check, but you never really know." In L.A., Tom Hoffarth notes the Dodgers' regular-season home finale against the Rockies on Sunday will mark Scully's "last trip to the Vin Scully Press Box to work as a broadcaster." Scully: "I don’t think I’m going to stress anything about me. I will just try to do the game. I really will" (L.A. DAILY NEWS, 9/20). Scully said that though the Dodgers "appear primed for a playoff berth, that won’t change his plans to call his last game" (USA TODAY, 9/20). On Long Island, Neil Best notes Scully is "doing his best to help the rest of us keep him in perspective." Best: "Not easy. Not when there are people now in their late 70s for whom Scully’s calls are a fond childhood memory" (NEWSDAY, 9/20).
VOICE OF SEVERAL GENERATIONS: N.Y. Daily News’ Mike Lupica said Scully has "not just one of the great baseball voices, he has one of the great voices this country has ever produced, across an incomparable career as an American artist and a genius." Scully has had an "impossible run of grace and talent and storytelling, and never-ending interest in the game in front of him” (“The Sports Reporters,” ESPN2, 9/18). In Cleveland, Bill Livingston wrote, "At his finest, Scully has produced extemporaneous literature, oral history as perfectly phrased and parsed as anything on any sheet of paper cranked out of a typewriter or any words standing in front of the pulsing cursor on a laptop computer" (Cleveland PLAIN DEALER, 9/20). In this week's SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, John Ourand writes under the header, "Baseball Voices Offer Four Reasons Why Everyone Loves Scully."
FITTING FAREWELL: In S.F., John Shea reports the Giants will "pay tribute to Scully during the finale," as both CSN Bay Area and KNBR-AM "will carry Scully’s call throughout the third inning" (S.F. CHRONICLE, 9/20).
