Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 909: Vin Scully Meets Mount Rushmore

Episode Date: June 21, 2016

Ben and Sam banter about Clayton Kershaw and clarify five-man infields, then discuss who would be on a baseball Mount Rushmore and dig through Sports Illustrated’s archives to pinpoint what makes Vin Scully so great.

Trees fade out in the black of the night. Sometimes they don't hardly seem worth the fight. But at least tonight I get to hear the golden voice of Vince Scully. The golden voice of Vince Scully. The golden voice of Inscully. The golden voice of Inscully. Good morning and welcome to episode 909 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives, brought to you by The Play Index, Baseball Reference, and our wonderful supporters on Patreon. I'm Sam Miller, along with Ben Lindberg of FiveThirtyEight.

Hey, Ben. Hello. Anything you want to get to quickly? supporters on Patreon. I'm Sam Miller, along with Ben Lindberg of FiveThirtyEight. Hey, Ben. Whoa. Anything you want to get to quickly? Yeah, I was going to say that it's funny how Clayton Kershaw is taken for granted in game stories. When Andy McCullough was on not so long ago, we talked about how there's just nothing you can say about another spectacular Kershaw start. Everything's already been said. So this MLB.com story about Kershaw's most recent victory says, Kenley Jansen got the Dodgers all-time

saves record with 162 as he closed out the team's 4-1 win over the Nationals on Monday night at Dodger Stadium. Next sentence, Clayton Kershaw was his usual self, holding the Nationals to one run in seven innings to pick up his 11th win. So Kershaw faces one of the best teams in baseball, gives up one run in seven innings, strikes out his 11th win So Kershaw faces one of the best teams in baseball Gives up one run in seven innings

Strikes out eight, walks no one Gets relegated to the second sentence After a guy getting a routine save Tough life Yeah, true I guess probably it's going to be hard for Kenley Jansen To keep setting that record though So maybe next time Kershaw will get the attention he deserves

Well, actually he'll set it every time he gets a save. Oh, that's true. You're right. The storied Dodgers all-time saves record. Yeah, Kenley Jansen set the Dodgers all-time record for saves, beating his own record for the 48th straight save. Clayton Kershaw pitched a complete game shutout. All right. Anything else? Well, is it time for us to say something about walk-off five-man infields? I need you to say something.

Just to save ourselves? Yeah, I'm going to need you to do it because I'm, yeah, I'd like you to. Okay, so. I've already. Yeah, so we appreciate all the tweets, all the Facebook threads about the recent five-man infields They come from a good place But the walk-off five-man infield We consider it completely distinct From the five-man infield That we tried with the Stompers

And that we talked about with August Fagerstrom on the podcast The five-man infield that we're talking about Is just a routine five-man infield You do it at any point in the game Essentially Just based not so much on the situation As on the hitter's battered ball tendencies

Or the pitcher's battered ball tendencies It's different if you are bringing in the five-man infield Because, you know, a fly ball scores the winning run Or whatever the reason is in a walk-off situation It's a little different Now, it does sort of seem as if the walk-off five-minute field is becoming more common, or maybe it's just that we now get 10 tweets every time it happens. I'm not sure which. And so if it is becoming more common, then maybe that is a prelude to what we talked about eventually happening on some regular basis. but this is different. Yeah, even if it, well, yeah, even if it is a prelude, I doubt it's a prelude, but yes, exactly. The first time we had this conversation,

I used the analogy of the guy throwing up a half court shot at the buzzer. That is the equivalent of the walk. I, since that one didn't stick, I will give another one. It is as though an independent hockey team in suburban Denver decided that pulling your goalie for the whole game was actually a good strategy. And so that would be, you know, well, I don't know if it'd be the same, but the fact that teams currently pull their goalie at the very end of a game in

which they're losing in a desperation move would not be comparable, right? It's a situational thing. It's not a basic state of baseball thing so anyway and so yeah and in hockey teams actually have started pulling their goalies earlier which is a a real thing that is you know recommended by statistics and so that's a little different from doing your goalie in the last 30 seconds i can't even get an analogy right so if teams start using five minutes in the eighth inning or something, then you can tweet us about it. I mean, you can tweet us about what you want. But we're not impressed by the five-minute infield in the walk-off situation.

It's fine. It's fun. It's more fun than a regular infield, I guess. It's kind of visually interesting. But it's just not of a piece with what we're talking about yeah although there is a new post in the facebook group by one of our listeners and patreon supporters kazuto yamazaki he linked to a youtube video of the yomiuri giants doing what seems to be a really legitimate five-man infield on july 11th 2014 against Siyoshi Nishioka. It was the top of the sixth. There were

runners on second and third with one out. One could say there were runners in scoring position. One could say it was a double clutch situation. And they were losing four to two. And the Giants manager brought in the left fielder into the third base shortstop hole once the count got to two and two. And Kazuto says Two pitches later Nishioka hit What would have been a routine fly ball to center Had Matsumoto positioned regularly For a two run double So the five man infield backfired in that case

But that seems to have been a real one I remember When we were doing our Five man infield practice in spring training And we told the High school team that was Standing in as our team's opponents that day that we were going to do a five man infield. They all said, oh yeah,

we did that last night. They were very excited. They did it last night. And I said, really? And then they described it and it was the walk-off situation. And when we told them that we were just going to do it regularly to get out, that was when their eyes bugged out a little bit. All right. Is that it? Yep. All right. So this is not the big topic, but it is a little bit. Right. All right. Is that it? Yep. All right. So this is not the big topic, but it is a way of getting into the topic today. I've been thinking lately about Mount Rushmores, Mount Rushmores of blank. The Slate Culture Gab Fest recently did a Mount Rushmore of culture,

and I spent about a month and a half thinking about it. I find Mount Rushmore of blank to be a very compelling frame for thinking about any field. And so I have lately been thinking about the Mount Rushmore of baseball. Who would be on it? You know, this is not the topic. You don't have to spend a lot of time on this. But who would be your, off the top of your head, who would be your Mount Rushmore of baseball? Four faces.

All right. Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson. I kind of like to say Branch Rickey, but maybe that's almost double counting. I'm going to pause you right there because it seems to me that those three are 100% obvious. There's just no way that you have a Mount Rushmore of baseball that doesn't have those three, in my opinion. They're the first three names you think of. They're the first three names I think of. They're three very good names. And Branch Rickey gets, I think if Branch Rickey had only accomplished one thing, signing Jackie Robinson, he probably wouldn't be on there. He certainly wouldn't be on there. But Branch Rickey is, you know, he is the Babe Ruth to front office,

you know, front office activity. And the fact that he was the one who signed Jackie Robinson as well is especially significant. Anyway, so I'm going to make those, I'm going to head off any controversy and just say, yes, you're right, those three. Now, who's the fourth though? Abner Doubleday, completely real founder of baseball. Vin Scully? All right, Ben. He has an argument. Oh my gosh, Ben. The topic today

is does Vin Scully have an argument? Kind of. Not really, but that's how, that's how this came up. I, cause I, I don't think, I'm not sure. I wouldn't have said Vin Scully at first thought. I thought of him and discarded him and kept thinking of other people. And it was only after really thinking about a lot of other people that I just, without trying, like, it's not that there was anything wrong with the other people, but I just kept cycling back to Vin Scully and wondering about it. I think to close the circle on the Rushmore thing, because I don't think we'll probably go back to the Rushmore thing,

but Ted Williams seemed like a plausible one to me, But Ted Williams seemed like a plausible one to me, mainly because I think there's just something absolutely incredible about twice leaving in the middle of his career to go be a war hero twice. Yeah. Like once totally like when once when everybody was doing it and basically the sport shut down. But the second time, like he went back like that. That's an amazing thing. And he was a war hero. Like, it's not like he just went and like that that's an amazing thing and he was a war hero like it's not like he just went and like was there yeah anyway but also also you know he's the uh you know he's up there with ruth and and and bonds is the greatest hitter of all time right and he hadn't taken those

those two breaks yeah if ruth represents the sport going from not a real sport to a real sport at the end of the, you know, bringing it out of the dead ball era. And if Jackie Robinson represents it going from a bigoted, closed, segregated sport to a non-segregated sport. sense, a much less important, but still that era when baseball, that post-war era when baseball really exploded as it sort of went into the mass media age and everything like that. And it was a certain sort of modernity that happened when Ted, anyway, so Ted Williams, Roberto Clemente, I think as a chance, Pedro Martinez, I think you could make a case for a few reasons that he would be a good representative up there. You know, you might start thinking about managers. Someone will say Marvin Miller. There are a few names. So Vince Scully, though, I was thinking about Vince Scully. One thing about Vince Scully is that you and I are both, relative to Vince Scully's career, extremely young. I was going to say that obviously this Mount Rushmore changes depending on which person

you ask and how old they are and what baseball they actually saw. You could say it's Hannes Wagner or Ty Cobb or Henry Chadwick or more recently Cal Ripken. It depends on when you came along and what you saw. Yeah, it is. And so for me, I didn't hear him until he had almost 40 years in the industry. You didn't hear him until a little after that. Neither of us heard him during his national broadcast heyday. Neither of us heard him doing football games as he did or golf matches.

Matches? Golf tournaments? Matches? What? Matches? Matches, golf tournaments, matches, what? Matches? As he did, none of us saw him doing like local TV presentation as he did. Like he's very different to us. And I think, I won't speak for you, but I think he's a very good broadcaster. I think that even if he, if somebody else came up today and could do a perfect Vin Scully impression of Vin Scully right now,

of 2016 Vin Scully, it would still be an above average broadcaster. It would be better than the median, but it wouldn't be, he's not the best. You know, if you take away Vince Scully, his Vince Sculliness, if you take away his history, he's no longer currently the best. He has a habit definitely of calling Clayton Kershaw's curveball a change up, for instance. And, you know, if that were a different broadcaster, I would probably be annoyed by it. But Vin Scully is pure joy to listen to because he's Vin Scully. So you have an above average broadcaster who you appreciate the history of. as an elite broadcaster, as the elite broadcaster, as a guy who really, who still had his fastball, who was in his prime, who was doing it when nobody else was doing it. And to try to understand what it must have been like to have, you know, to, or to, to sort of understand, to give you an analogy, every once in a while, my wife and I will see a movie, like, I don't know, we'll see an officer and a gentleman and my wife will go, oh, finally, I understand Richard Gere. Like, we've seen Richard Gere in 100 movies, but that's the reason he's the star. That's the reason people love Richard Gere, right? Because of that movie.

Yeah, right. Although we all got Richard Gere in Arbitrage, which was pretty good gear. But yes, I know what you mean. By the time I was born, Vince Scully was in the Hall of Fame. So he had put together a Hall of Fame career before I was here to witness it. I've seen next to none of that. I wanted to sort of get a sense of what it was like. And so I went back into the Sports Illustrated vault, which has dozens of mentions of Vin Scully and a few deep profiles of him. And I read them going all the way through. And so I want to just basically read long chunks that I found significant from these profiles. So the first thing to note is that the first one of these long profiles came in 1964 when he was 36. And it was already calling him the greatest broadcaster alive. I mean, he was already something of a legend.

At 36, at 36, he'd been there for about 15 years. He'd been their lead guy for about a decade. They were already writing like 6,000 word profiles about him in Sports Illustrated. So that tells you a little something about if you are like me and you tend to think, ah, well, you know, he's just been around a long time. He's a compiler. It is absolutely not the case that he is a compiler. So, so point one, this is more for fun than significant, but on the Rushmore discussion, the guy who hired him is Branch Rickey, which is like another amazing thing when you think about Branch Rickey is that he also

hired Vin Scully. And so this is the part where it talks about that. This is Vin talking about it. I had to go over and be interviewed by Branch Rickey, who was president of the Dodgers then. I spent three hours with him, three hours with him for entry level broadcaster position. He was like the number three guy. They had Red Barber, who was the lead. I mean, he was the most famous broadcaster in the country at that time. So you're really talking about a guy who was a very small role on a team that had a very big star. But still, three hours with him. I remember that because he had lunch brought in.

He did most of the talking. He talked about the pitfalls a young man faced. He asked me, you married? I said, no, sir. He said, engaged? I said, no, sir. He said, go steady? I said, no, sir. He said, engaged? I said, no, sir. He said, go steady? I said, no, sir. He said, got a girl? I said, well, no. He chewed that cigar of his for a minute,

and then he snapped, get a girl, go steady, get engaged, get married. Best thing in the world for a young man. So there you go. All right. The second thing is that he's a local guy, that he stayed with the Dodgers all that time. And while he did a lot of national broadcasts and would have been known as part of a national broadcast team, you don't really do your best work usually. He might have. But you don't usually do your best work in national broadcasts. You do your best work in the local and the day-to-day of it. in the local and the day-to-day of it.

And Vin Scully in particular is just, what you really hope to do is to transcend, to be a good local guy, but to really transcend what it means to be a local guy. And so Vin Scully came over from Brooklyn. He was already there, a broadcaster. I wrote a piece, an unfiltered piece, about three years ago,

where I found an LA Times column that he had written because one of their columnists went on vacation. So Vince Scully wrote a guest column. He was brand new in LA and he wrote this 600 word piece about coming to LA. And it was so like scared and humble. Like the last thing he wrote was, I hope I can be a reasonable success in Los Angeles for the sake of my wife and family. Like the transition to California has not been an easy one. After eight years of hard work in New York, it was like beginning all over again, trying too hard to make a good impression with a new audience sometimes led to mistakes that I felt I had long since overcome. And many times I wished I could erase them with that sponge and a little

pail of water from grammar school. He talks about how he sounds a lot like our book. Yeah, it does. So anyway, he comes to LA and is not just, you know, he's not just a success in LA. He's not just their local broadcaster for a long time. He is the greatest local broadcaster of all time by I would say by a mile like I I there might be other guys you can make an argument for but he is even even like immediately he was using the sort of almost using the medium of LA itself as a as a way of transcending what a local broadcaster can do and so in this profile from 1964 give a word association test to a baseball fan from Omaha or Memphis or Philadelphia and suddenly throw in the phrase Los Angeles Dodgers. And almost certainly the answer will be Sandy Koufax or Maury Wills or Don Drysdale or Walter O'Malley or Chavez Ravine. But give the same test to a fan in Los Angeles and the odds are the answer will be Vin Scully.

odds are the answer will be Vin Scully. He talks about, in this profile, about how radio was such a huge thing in LA because, for one thing, because of the driving. So everybody drove and everybody had a radio in their car. So to quote, because of a minimum of efficient public transportation, practically everybody drives to and from work, and for that matter, to and from everywhere. And in almost every car, there is a radio, and every radio is always on. When a home-rushing driver bogs down in a classic freeway traffic jam, he finds that nothing else is as soothing as Vin Scully's voice describing the opening innings of a Dodger night game just getting underway a few thousand miles in three time zones to the east.

This time difference has been a key factor in the growth of Scully's audience. A man who drives home from work listening to an exciting game is not about to abandon it when he reaches his house. As a result, millions of Southern Californians have Vin Scully with their supper. And to go to transition straight to point three, the other thing is that Vin Scully was the sort of, well, he was, according to these profiles, the man who inspired thousands of transistor radios in the ballpark. And do you always hear that right about how you could go to a Dodgers game and exactly stands in here, Scully everywhere. Exactly. And there are two anecdotes to this that are extremely well, well trod. One is the time that he led the singing of Happy Birthday to

Frank Sicori, who was, I believe, a visiting player that day, and the whole crowd sang in between innings. And the second is when, during a long break in the action while somebody argued a bach call because the pitcher hadn't stopped for a full second, Vince Scully decided to see if people knew how long a second actually was. So he would say, I'm going to say one. And after a second passes, you say two. And the whole crowd, which is listening to transistors, would say two. And Scully goes, I think only one of you got it right.

So those are, and he had a stopwatch while he was doing this. And so those are the two classic articles, two classic anecdotes about it. But I, you know, the transistor, it wasn't just that people wanted to hear Vince Scully. According to this article in 2008, speaking of the Coliseum, back in 1958, when the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles and had to play in that converted football stadium, anyone sitting 80, maybe 90 rows from the field couldn't tell the difference between a squeeze bunt and a grand slam. The transistor radio had just been invented, so fans could summon that soothing voice,

and it would issue from thousands of little speakers, aisle to aisle, foul pole to foul pole, an odd and reverberating ambiance that became a given, just part of living in the Southland, echoing here and there from the valleys to the beach even, like the sound of surf or something. And there was another explanation for the transistor craze with Vin Scully back earlier. Perhaps their unfamiliarity with major leaguers prompted so many fans to bring transistors along at first in order to establish instant

identification of the players. But a large percentage brought radios not just to identify players, but to learn what they were doing. Scully was talking to an audience that had not been watching baseball. The old minor league teams that Los Angeles and Hollywood had in the PCL seldom drew more than a few hundred thousand spectators in their best years. Now a million and a half, two million, two million and a half were pouring into the ballparks. Through Vin Scully, they learned the fine points, the subtleties, the in-language

of the game. I remember when I was a kid hearing, there would always be like one guy with a transistor radio. And I always thought that guy was sort of weird. Like I never understood, like you're at the game, why are you listening to the game? But now I appreciate thought that guy was sort of weird. Like, I never understood. Like, you're at the game. Why are you listening to the game? But now I appreciate that that was a guy who misses the old days. Now I feel a little sad. Anyway. I did it once or twice. You brought the radio?

I just had to hear John Sterling. Just couldn't do without him. Yeah, what would the home run call be? I brought headphones. I had headphones, though. I wasn't inflicting him on everyone in the home run call be i would i brought i had headphones though i wasn't inflicting him on everyone in the vicinity i brought headphones too the i don't i don't know that i i think it's got to be 20 years at least since i sat in a ballpark while somebody had a radio playing uh audibly but there were when i was really young when i was like in the 80s there

were there would definitely be a few and i again just, I didn't appreciate that that was sort of a historical artifact. Uh, and now I'm kind of sad that, I mean, baseball stadiums really are, I think one of the problems with casual fans do find it boring is that it is dead silent. You are not just do you not bring a transistor radio with you, but you are discouraged from standing up or cheering, except in a couple of moments in the game. And I would love to go back and watch baseball in a stadium where there was noise, even if it was Vin Scully's broadcast from thousands of transistors from foul pole to foul pole. Especially if it was. Especially if it was, yeah. Before this season ends, by the way, we're talking about this because this is Vin Scully's last season, which most people probably know, but before this season ends, some Dodgers fan, or perhaps some Dodger employee, but it'd be much better if it were done by Dodger fans, should really create a grassroots movement to have one day

where everybody brings a radio and you recreate it. And if no fan does it, the Dodgers should just set up like 85 speakers around the ballpark and have the whole game be broadcast while you watch it. The great thing about radio too is it blows your mind that it is immediate, that there is no, like it's traveling at the speed of light. And it really, like the broadcast is in your eyes. It's in the same time as your eyes.

It's a great thrill when the call is the same time. It's not like that with TV. Anyway, all right. Number four, objectivity. A Scully, this from 64, a Scully admirer has said, if I tune in a game in the middle, I can never tell from the tone of Vin's voice whether the Dodgers are ahead or behind. It doesn't get gleeful. It doesn't get dull and flat. I like baseball, and I think he does too. He tells me what is going on. He tells me things about the game that I want to know. This is not a coincidence. I'm going to keep reading.

The fact that Scully does not root for the Dodgers in his broadcast stems from a decision he made in his first winter in L.A. There was considerable discussion among club officials about the, quote, attitude that the play-by-play broadcast should take. Although the broadcasts are sponsored, Union Oil Company holds the rights and usually sells half the commercial time to another advertiser. Vin is an employee of the Dodgers. He is paid about $50,000 a year and is responsible primarily to the club. In 1958, some of the Dodger officials thought that Scully might be wise to adopt an all-out pro-Dodger tone over the air. Such an approach had been considered impossible back in Brooklyn because New York at the time had three major league teams and those tuned in to any game always comprised a mixture of adherence of all three clubs. An announcer openly rooting for one team would have quickly alienated a substantial part of his listening audience, but in LA, the pro-rooting faction contended the city was all ours. Scully spent

weeks pondering the suggestion and finally came to the conclusion that he would be better off following the style he was used to, that is, to be as objective and factual as possible. Quote, it turned out to be one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me, he said recently. When Los Angeles had minor league baseball, the games were broadcast on a partisan basis. The announcer rooted for the teams, but when major league baseball came to LA and Jerry Doggett and I did the game straight without rooting, it had a very favorable impact. It was as if the city, without knowing it, had been waiting for this kind of announcing. People were seeing Major League Baseball for the first time. It was different, and they liked it. When they heard us, they assumed that this was the way Major League games were broadcast, and they liked that, too. I think

they appreciated the compliment, that what they wanted was a factual report, and they didn't have to be told how to root. And I think that Vince Goley is completely correct. I think that one of the worst things about broadcasts is that announcers don't trust their audience. That they don't trust that objectivity will resonate with their audience. And the subtle ways, sometimes not subtle. I mean, we all know of the true homers, but even for the ones who basically think they're playing it straight, there is a obnoxious, non-factual, non-objectivity to the things they say.

And there is an example that really drove, you know, that it's the sort of thing that drives me crazy. Recently, like Sal Perez got like kind of banged up in a game or something like that. And Rex Hudler goes, well, the good news is that the Kansas City Royals training staff will be taking care of him. And they are by far the best in the sport. Which is just like, why would you say something so stupid? Like, what is your, like you think that, like, think that, like, it's not true. It's a dumb thing to say.

It's insulting to the fan. It's kind of insulting to the Kansas City Royals training staff that, like, you don't, like, if you want to compliment somebody, you give them a good compliment. You don't give them a, like, just, you know, fluff, right? And this is fluff. And I don't know. I find that the non-objectivity that sneaks into broadcasts, it isn't a matter of focusing on the good.

It's a matter of feeling a pressure to say good things no matter what. And that leads to compliments that I can't even take seriously. And Vin Scully is really, truly, he nails the objectivity. That's really interesting, because in an alternate timeline where Vin Scully does decide to be a homer, I wonder if he's anywhere near as beloved as he is now. I do too. He'd still be a very good broadcaster. He'd still be an institution if he lasted as long. But would he have gotten those national opportunities? And so would he be as well known to the nation? And would he be as beloved by non-Dodgers fans?

Because there are local broadcasting legends in many markets and they don't break through. And, and, you know, most of them don't last quite as long as Vin has lasted. And most of them weren't quite as good as Vin. But maybe it's also that they are seen as partisan figures, or some of them are. And so it's harder to embrace them if you don't root for that team. Whereas Vin is kind of everyone's broadcaster. He's not just for Dodgers fans. Yeah, there was a piece in 1978, a profile of Harry Carey, where the writer, I think very unwisely, used Vin Scully as a negative comparison. And he said, can you envision Dodger fans standing up in the middle of the game to cheer Vin Scully the way

they cheer Harry here? He says what he believes on the air and the fans identify directly with him. I think that completely misses it. I think Vin Scully, I think, yes, they, people do. They stand up in the middle of the game to cheer him in, uh, you know, maybe less direct ways, but, uh, yeah, I mean, he's, there's a, so I'll just, yeah, round this, round this off, but why this refreshing candor is not only tolerated, but encouraged by the Dodger organization owes as much to heritage as to the team's financial solidity. The Dodgers have a tradition of tough, knowledgeable radio coverage dating back to Red Barber in the late 30s. Now it just seems to go with the territory. Quote, we would probably lose half of our followers if we

didn't allow Scully to describe the game the way he sees it, says one Los Angeles official. We feel Vin is promoting the sport, and that means he's promoting the Dodgers. It's what the public has come to expect. And I love that last quote. We feel he's promoting the sport, and that means he's promoting the Dodgers. I think that's exactly right. Yeah. And you wouldn't have people tuning in via MLB TV. I mean, I just tune in to watch Dodgers games in part sometimes because I know I can hear Scully, and probably I wouldn't do that if he were just rah-rah Dodgers games in part sometimes because I know I can hear Scully and probably I wouldn't do that if he were just rah-rah Dodgers. And I'm sure a lot of people, even if they're watching their team play the Dodgers, they might listen to the Scully broadcast anyway, just because he's Scully

and they know he's not going to be so biased that they can't enjoy that broadcast. So I would agree that even if you just look at it from a ratings perspective in the MLB TV era, when anyone can watch and anyone can pick their broadcast, that probably helps quite a bit. Yes. So next point is that he knows the game a lot, which might seem like a sort of dumb and obvious thing to say. But again, going back to my experience with Vin Scully, you know, I think of him as a good broadcaster. And I think of his primary allure, though, being that he's Vin Scully. Like, when you get a chance to watch, you know, Vin Scully or to watch even at the end of his career, a legend, you do it. And I think that we've, maybe I specifically, have focused too much on his history and never really appreciated how much he does know about the game. You and I talked about whether he has seen more baseball games than anybody in history.

The first person who tried to count how many baseball games he had seen was in 1964, 52 years, 52 seasons worth of games ago. And they wrote, his knowledge of the game is very broad, counting World Series playoffs, spring training, and regular seasons. He has watched at least 2,500 Major League games over the past 14 seasons. They compare that to how many a beat writer or even a player would see. And I'm not going to read, I guess I'm not going to read this whole long thing, but there's like a, like a seven paragraph description. I'll just, I'll cut it down to two paragraphs. In radio, you're leading all the time, but in television, you're a counterpuncher, says Scully, who put on an impressive show of the latter while telecasting a game earlier this season in San Francisco. Juan

Marshall was pitching and Scully, astute student of the game that he is, told his viewers that the Giant star seemed off stride while making his distinctive leg-high wind-up. In the second inning, Marichal's wind-up began to improve, which Scully demonstrated by bringing into play stop-action camera and instant replay, visual aids still absent from many baseball telecasts. Then the giant pitcher broke off a good curve, a single pitch, but one that moved Scully to the casual eloquence characteristic of his style. That's the kind of pitch Roy Campanella used to say gives you the old jelly leg, he said. It's tough to hang in there on curveballs like those. Your leg starts to leave without you. And mostly when you see Vince Scully quoted or when you see excerpts of his work, it's the poetry.

There was a few decade period where like any reference to Vince Scully in Sports Illustrated seemed to come with some reference to poetry or him being a poet. I think that it's underrated what he understood about the game, what he knew about the game. he knew about the game. And I think that having gone through these profiles, I think I will appreciate it more going forward. Because there are, you know, I think there are things about the game that you depend on him to tell you and to know for you. And he is talking to the manager every day. He does have 67 years of talking to players about what makes the game hard to them and of watching it. And so I just don't think we should sleep on that. All right.

Yeah. Point seven. There's a quote. He's gotten this far without so much as a catchphrase, which is basically true. If you think about it, if he has a catchphrase, I mean, the deuces are wild is kind of a catchphrase, but not really. And, of course, welcome to Dodger baseball, but that's not a catchphrase. That's just he's starting a broadcast.

If there's anything that is a trademark for him, it's probably the silence that he allows in the biggest moments. You know, very famously in all sorts of games, in Sandy Kovacs' perfect game, the ninth inning, after Hank Aaron's 715th home run, after Kirk Gibson's home run. He's the master of letting the crowd and letting the game tell the story for those couple minutes, longer than you would think a broadcaster would be capable of holding his tongue. And other broadcasters have noted that they have stolen

this from him as well. And the history of that is actually from, I think, 1953, maybe 55, when he called the World Series. And he called the World Series that year by, kind of by chance, this was like his third big break in his career. Red Barber would have been doing it, but he was in a dispute over what share of the advertising revenue he would get, I think. And then the Dodgers number two guy was sick, and they wanted to have a Brooklyn guy in the broadcast, and so Vin Scully did it. So anyway, this is the last out of that World Series. Ladies and gentlemen, the Brooklyn Dodgers are the champions of the world. A long silence followed, lest he break down crying on air.

So he wouldn't have been silent except he was going to cry. Quote, parentheses, he was young then and these boys were his boys. So that's the origin of that trademark. He says, to this day,

what I've always tried to do is call the play as quickly as I can and then shut up, not only for the benefit of the listener, but for my own joy of hearing the crowd roar. So there you go. That's his trademark. Pretty clever if you can figure out a way to silence your trademark. It's nice work. I wonder if that works on podcasts. We should incorporate more silence into the podcast. Let listeners think their own thoughts.

did. And like, as I've told people about my own job, after about three days, every job is a job. It doesn't matter if your job is playing shortstop for the Yankees or, you know, doing the taxes of a corporation. After three days, it's work. And so he probably did love it. And then it became his business. But this is from 2008. and it was talking specifically about his decision to quit going east of the Rockies, to basically only do home games and West Coast road games because he wanted to spend more time with his grandkids in particular. And the writer says, in any case, he's not a baseball fan particularly, and he doesn't miss the games. It occurred to him long ago that some players come and go. The last one he formed an attachment with was Ralph Branca, only because Scully could fill out a hand on a series of double dates.

So there you go. That's Vin Scully. Vin Scully in 50 years of Sports Illustrated. Yeah, and he's gotten to the point now where his age allows him to tell pretty standard stories but have them go viral basically just because he's old essentially like he can you know tell the story about how he was walking down the street when he was a little kid and he saw dead horses lying around and it's like you're so old now are you still doing this you were alive during this period you were alive during dead horse era yeah it's like something out of an episode of the dollop

except he's still living that's nice if you last that long then that's one of the perks that comes with the position is that you can just tell these stories from your youth, except your youth was unimaginably long ago. And so it just has this added weight to it just because you lived it. And I was listening to Jonah Carey's interview with Tom Perducci, who's the most recent Vince Scully profile writer in Sports Illustrated. And he was talking about how the classical education that Scully had or that his contemporaries tended to have helps him out because he can drop these references to philosophers or whatever. And it's not the sort of thing that you typically hear on a baseball broadcast anymore. And so he differentiates himself in that sense also. So lots to love.

My favorite. in that sense also. So, lots to love. My favorite, there's a sort of genre of fun fact that I never really liked that much, but it's like the, you know, this guy was alive when this guy was alive and that guy was alive when that guy was alive and that guy was alive in, you know, before the Revolutionary War or whatever. Like, something, like there's one of those about presidents and like John Adams or something. I don't know.

I never really like them. I don't. But I like this one because I found it so it's self-serving to like it. Vin Scully's career overlapped with Connie Mack's. And Connie Mack was born before the Emancipation Proclamation. So one removed. His career is one removed from slavery like that's crazy which is also like a very very extremely unfun fact about slavery god it's only been 150 years

ben i cannot believe it i often think of that when people lament how terrible things are today is that like there are people alive probably whose fathers were born during that era. And so it's not that long ago. So we've made some progress. I know. There was an amazing, like an A-plus piece in The New Yorker about two weeks ago about this Afghan guy who sold tamales in Wyoming in the 1950s. And it's one of the best pieces I've ever read.

But one of the amazing things about that story is that he couldn't be a citizen because he wasn't white. It's insane. A hundred years, people are alive. Yeah. Things are better today. So anyway, is he on Rushmore?

I think I'm putting him on Rushmore because I don't know, it's really tough. It's hard to give it to somebody whose only role in the game was describing it. The differences with the other three figures we put on there immediately really changed the game. The game was totally different because of some contribution they made. Scully, we love him. He's enhanced the sport for everyone. And maybe that's enough. But he hasn't changed really even his field, right? Like he is archaic even in his field. No one does the Vin Scully style broadcast anymore. So he is an anachronism. So you can't really say that he has been an influence. I mean, he has been an influence, but I guess other influences have been stronger. So it's not like Babe Ruth came along and suddenly everyone started hitting for power or Jackie Robinson came along and now baseball is integrated or all the advances Branch Rickey made.

Vince Scully is just the best at what he does, and we all love him, and he's done it for an incredibly long time at an incredibly high level but that's it i mean that's plenty maybe that's enough for mount rushmore but it's a little bit different yeah i guess it the it really comes down to whether there is a fourth person who changed the game on the level of the other three that you want to recognize marvin miller who you mentioned is probably up there in that sense. Yeah, exactly. It also, though, feels weird to give it to somebody who did his entire job without ever actually having to even go to the park. Like, he's not even in the, he's not technically even in the arena of the sport.

Yeah. It'd be like, I mean, it's not, but it'd be like giving it to, you know, Marconi for inventing the radio so that, you know, the sport could take off in a, in a mass medium way. I mean, it's not really the same, but I don't know why I say that's totally disingenuous. It is nothing like saying, give it to Marconi. Marvin Miller's a fine, a fine selection and probably finer than Vin. The only reason it is probably my personal

taste that would choose Vin over Marvin Miller or anybody else, because I, I really, I mean, you know, my column at Baseball Perspectives is called Pebble Hunting. And the idea of that name was that baseball is a game that exists to be watched and that it is just as important to, to watch the people who are watching it and then also watch the players being watched, that they know they're being watched, that pebble hunting is a performative act. It is a self-aware act. It is knowing that people are watching you and trying to sort of excuse your error by

finding the pebble and discarding it. And so Vin Scully represents two things I think that would be important on a Mount Rushmore. One is recognition of the audience, that it's not just about hitting home runs or putting out a good team, but that it is doing all this for an audience of tens of millions who have turned it into a pastime. There are consumers of it, and that is what separates it from something that isn't watched, that isn't part of the culture. The other thing is that Vin Scully is, due to his longevity, modern. There is nobody else on the Rushmore from post-1950, or if you count retirement, post-1970s. And baseball has existed For 47 years

46 years since then And Vin Scully is of that era as well And has been there for all of it So checks off the modern era box Which Marvin Miller ushered in the modern era But isn't necessarily of it Right, yeah, you could probably make A pretty good case that Marvin Miller

Has actually made the game better As a spectator sport and as an experience, because that was what I was thinking initially, is that Vin is for the fans and Marvin Miller is sort of for the players. And he's made the players very rich and he's made the labor system much more fair, but has he made the sport more entertaining? I think you could probably argue that he has done that also, even if it was just a side benefit. I think, you know, he's made the sport more competitive and more professional and probably the players are better because of that. But yeah, I think if you were just purely talking about who has changed the game the most, then Miller has a better argument than Scully.

who has changed the game the most, then Miller has a better argument than Scully. But that doesn't have to be the argument that you make. So I'm okay with giving Vin that fourth spot. Okay. All right. So that is it for today. I like that idea about the radio broadcasts on the final day because people have been trying to get Vin like an all-star game or a World Series game or playoff games or something,

and that hasn't happened. He doesn't seem to be all that interested in having that happen. And if it does, that would be cool. But if it doesn't, I like your idea about the radio broadcast in the ballpark. Should we take the lead? Yeah, start a petition, start a movement, start a hashtag, whatever people do. Yeah, or just email John Wiseman and see if he can make it happen. Yeah, sure.

I guess we could do that too. All right. Yeah, I would like to have it happen. So let's do it. The only possible – I wonder if there would be any problem with the – would it mess up the TV broadcast? Would there be – like because there is a point where they're talking about the transitions and they say they had to they had to actually turn down. I think they had to turn down the field mics or something because of feedback. So because he does both at the same time, you would hear him in his own broadcast.

Yeah. I don't know. Turn down the crowd mics. Yeah. I don't know. We can work that out. Don't have TV. Have a whole like.

Well, I'm not. I've just ruined. There's no way this will happen. But it'd be truly an honor to him to have there be a radio-only game. And for half of LA, it will be. Yeah, right. All right. I thought that fewer people could hear him, so that would be bad. All right. That is really it for today.

All right. Hear him so that would be bad All right that is really it For today all right you can support the podcast By going to patreon.com Slash effectively wild and pledging To support us five listeners who have done So already Dana Bennett Lisa Lozo Josh bear Peter

Quadrino and Casey Shankland Thank you you can buy our book the only rule Is it has to work our wild experiment building A new kind of baseball team go to the website At the only rule is it has to work Dot wild experiment building a new kind of baseball team go to the website at the only rule is it has to work.com to find out more got excerpts and interviews and reviews on there as well as stats and photos and videos that you can look at when you're finished with the book when we hope that you will also leave us reviews at amazon and goodreads you can join our facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild and you can rate and review

and subscribe to the podcast on itunes get the discounted price of 30 on one year subscription Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild and you can rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription to the play index by using the coupon code BP when you sign up at baseball reference.com we'll be doing a listener email show tomorrow so send us your questions now to podcast at baseball prospectus.com or by messaging us through patreon we'll be be back tomorrow. I grew up in L.A. to the sweet sounds of Vince Scully. That's how I went to bed most every night. There ain't no prettier park than the one in Chavez Ravine. I see many games by the palm trees and the lights.

But you don't usually do your best work in national broadcasts. You do it in the... Unbelievable. Never should have taken Branch ricky's advice gotten married