Tribute to Vin Scully – Part V

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Tying it all together

Leon’s son Charles was the first of two Culbersons drafted by the Giants.  An outfielder, he played in the minor leagues for five years, three in the Giants organization and two in Royals organization.  But he didn’t make it past Class AA and his last season was in 1988.  Two important things happened in the Culberson family in 1989.  Charles’ son, Charlie, was born on April 10.  Leon only had a short time to enjoy his grandson.  He died on September 17 at age 71.

Some might have found this to be an interesting story: the grandson of a major league player associated with a Series losing moment, getting some family redemption by hitting a pennant-clinching walk-off home run.  But what does this have to do with Vin Scully other than its connection with Vin’s last game broadcast at Dodger Stadium?

Vin Scully delivers the 2000 Fordham University commencement address

From a personal perspective, it might be said that Leon’s career ended in the Bronx about a year before Vin’s academic career ended in the same borough.  By the following year, Vin’s professional sports broadcasting career would start in the city and stadium where Leon spent most of his major league career patrolling the outfield.  And less than two years after Leon’s last major league game, while he was still playing in the minor leagues, Vin began his 67 year career as broadcaster for the Dodgers.

But from a historical perspective, there is so much more.  Simply from a baseball point of view, 1946 represented a changing of the guard in baseball.  It was the year that many players came back from World War II.  Some were able to pick up where they left off.  Some were better players than when they left.  But some found that in the years they were away, even if they were playing baseball frequently while in the military (and most were), their skills eroded during that time.  And of course there were a few who didn’t come back at all or who came back too severely injured to play the game again.

Meanwhile, there were young players waiting in the wings who had gotten an early taste of the major leagues, even as diluted as they had become during the war.  So there was a sifting process.  Some made it even with the stiffer competition and others did not.  And there were also players coming back from the war who had either not yet made the majors or barely had a taste of it before they were drafted or they enlisted.  Many of them played against established major league players and acquitted themselves well.  They were looking for their big chance.  So there was a sifting process.  There were still only 16 teams and only about 400 spots on the roster (plus a few extra on the injured list).  Some would make it and many would soon be disappointed.

Branch Rickey

And to add to the apparent oversupply, Branch Rickey and then Bill Veeck were bringing in even more players from a previously untapped source: the Negro Leagues.  Over the next 10-15 years, that would change the face of baseball and the face of America.

While the major leagues were not integrated in 1946, a few of the minor leagues had become integrated.  All the black players were on Dodger farm teams. There are few people who don’t know that Jackie Robinson signed a contract with the Dodgers late in 1945 and starred for the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers AAA team in the International League, in 1946. What is less known is that Rickey signed pitcher Roy Partlow to come along side Jackie. When Partlow didn’t pitch well, he signed pitcher John Wright.  While both were experienced Negro League pitchers, neither of them could handle the pressure and didn’t last the season. At the end of the year, Robinson was the only black player on the Montreal roster.

Rickey had also signed Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe to play in the Dodger organization.  Campy was ready for the majors and certainly would have starred with Montreal.  Newk was still rough around the edges and needed a little more time to develop.  Rickey wanted to integrate the Brooklyn Dodgers gradually, but he didn’t intend to start these two future stars at such a low level.  However, the highest level team in the Dodger organization that would take them was the brand-new Nashua team in the Class B New England League.  Ironically, blacks would play home games in 1946 for a team about 50 miles away from Boston, the home of the foot-dragging Red Sox owned by Tom Yawkey.

In addition, consider the fact that in 1946, the Cardinals had won their fourth pennant and third World Championship since Pearl Harbor was attacked.  They had to survive a best-of-three playoff with the Dodgers to win the NL pennant and the World Series.  For the first time in the modern era, two teams were tied at the end of the regular season.  They were two teams whose rosters in part were the result of Branch Rickey’s leadership.  And before the war started, they looked like they were on the verge of a lasting rivalry.  In 1941, the Dodgers were in first and the Cardinals second.  In 1942 when only a few players had gone into the military, the order reversed with both teams winning over 100 games.  Now it looked like the rivalry was resuming.  Instead, 1946 signaled the beginning of a change in the balance of power in the National League.  And it signaled the beginning of the end of a regrettable practice in major league baseball.

Through 1949, the Cardinals were contenders.  But other than Enos Slaughter and Stan Musial, their team had gotten old.  And they were not yet signing black players like the Dodgers were (and getting a head start over the rest of baseball in doing so).  From 1947 to 1963, the Dodgers finished first eight times and won three World Championships; they also finished tied for first twice and lost playoffs; they finished second three other times, one of which they were not eliminated until the final day of the season; they only had a losing record twice.  The Cardinals came up empty for that entire 17 year stretch.  Then for the next five years until divisional play started, the Cardinals won three pennants and two World Series, and the Dodgers won two pennants and one World Series.  By then we had already reached the expansion era and the free agent draft era.

Black players were also bringing a more aggressive game with them with more emphasis on speed.  Since the National League overall integrated faster, their game became more associated with stolen bases, taking the extra base and breaking up double plays.  And starting in 1950 and lasting for decades, the National League replaced the American League as the dominant team in the All-Star Game.

Roy Campanella

While Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe and a couple more black players were on Dodger farm clubs in 1946, there was no iron-clad guarantee that they would make the major league roster in 1947 or any other year.  So many things could still go wrong, from poor performance to a violent outburst.

But as it turned out, the seventh game of the 1946 World Series was the last game played in segregated major leagues.  And only one more World Series (1950) was played without at least one black player included.  By the end of the 1950’s, every team was integrated, although a few like the Yankees, Phillies, Tigers and Red Sox dragged their feet getting there.  That’s the same Red Sox who were the Cardinals opponents in the 1946 Series.  They would be the last team to integrate their major league roster.

It is a matter of debate regarding how far some of the Cardinals (and a few players on other teams) were willing to go to strike in protest of Jackie Robinson being brought to the major by the Dodgers.  We do know that there were players on the Cardinals talking about it seriously.  After all, even a group of Dodgers were circulating a petition to keep Robinson off the team until Leo Durocher put an end to it.  We know that Slaughter, the person who scored the winning run of the 1946 World Series, was one of the ringleaders of the strike talk that came to light when the Cardinals arrived in Brooklyn for a three game series on May 6. And we know that at some point during the season, Slaughter spiked Robinson on the thigh when he hit a ground ball and was thrown out by a good margin.  We also know that Harry Walker who had the Series winning hit that drove in Slaughter, as well as his brother “Dixie” on the Dodgers were among the most vocal objectors to blacks in the major leagues.

White players had opportunities to play against black players from time to time in exhibition games, during barnstorming tours and in winter ball in Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Mexico.  In a few cases, they competed against each other on military teams.  So they knew how good the best black players were.  And yet many of them, such as Bob Feller, fed comments to the press that it was lack of ability that kept blacks out of the major league, not prejudice.  Feller also said that Robinson would not hit well in the majors and that he would have no problem getting out Jackie.  Bigoted baseball writers like Joe Williams seized upon these comments to decry blacks’ entry into the majors.

Jackie Robinson and Bob Feller being feted after the end of their playing days.

In delicious irony, Feller and Robinson would be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame together.  Jackie would be the National League Rookie of the Year in 1947 with a .297 batting average.  In 1949, he was the National League Most Valuable Player and batting champion while finishing second in runs batted in.  He also led the league in stolen bases those two seasons.  1949 was the first of six straight seasons of hitting over .300 and he hit .311 for his career.  Although he never hit more than 19 home runs in a season, he was such a great clutch hitter that in his prime, he was usually the Dodgers cleanup hitter.

Although Jackie Robinson died at the relatively young age of 53 in 1972, his wife, Rachel, has been one of the heritage faces of the Dodgers organization ever since then, along with Vin Scully.  The close relationship between Scully and the Robinsons goes back to Scully’s earliest days with the Dodgers, including the challenge Jackie posed to Vin to race on ice skates when the three of them were sent to Bear Mountain to do a promotion on behalf of the Dodgers. Jackie had never skated before, and the race never happened, but Jackie was serious.

Rachel Robinson

Rachel, a strong positive partner for Jackie throughout his career, going back to his season in Montreal, eventually became one of the best ambassadors of baseball as well as a respected part of the conscience for the game.  Their daughter and granddaughter are picking up the mantle.  They have been and continue to be reminders of a grievous part of the history of baseball and the United States in general, the sacrifice it took for a handful of courageous people to begin to overcome bigoted attitudes, the heritage of those playing now who would have been barred at one time, and the progress (and in some cases the lack thereof) that has been made since then.

For his part, Scully’s storytelling, including stories about Jackie Robinson, has made a major contribution to the oral history of baseball.  In addition, his skill in describing the action to the fans and newly initiated, his ability to convey the mood of the game with vocal inflection and keep things interesting without rooting or losing control of his emotions, maintaining his objectivity without attacking any of the participants involved: all these things have helped develop multiple generations of baseball fans in North America and beyond.  And he has been a positive influence and role model for many other broadcasters during his career, including his Spanish-speaking counterpart on the Dodger broadcasts, Jaime Jarrin.  With his voice preserved in countless ways on the Internet, I hope he will be an inspiration to many future broadcasters as well.

Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler

The baseball world of Leon Culberson and the seventh game of the 1946 World Series was, with a few minor league exceptions, a white-only world.  When the baseball owners voted after the end of that season, they voted 15-1 against Jackie Robinson being allowed to play in the major leagues.  It took the moral persistence of Branch Rickey (the only yes vote), the ability of Jackie Robinson to play at a superior level with grace under pressure, and the courage of Major League Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler to defy that vote and integrate the major leagues for the first time since the 1880’s.

The baseball world of Charlie Culberson and Vin Scully in the final year of his career has made tremendous strides of inclusiveness based on talent.  Major league baseball has fielded players from every inhabited continent, including many star players from Latin America and the Orient.  There are currently 63 black players and managers in the Baseball Hall of Fame, 30 of whom had careers primarily in the former Negro Leagues.  There are currently 12 Latin American players in the Hall of Fame, many of them black (and therefore on more than one list).

Billy Bean

Although no major league player has come out as gay to the public during his career, two have come out after their careers.  Billy Bean was one of them.  Since 2014, he has served as MLB’s first Ambassador for Inclusion.

The racism of Enos Slaughter of the Cardinals and the Red Sox organization (and many others) eventually lost.  The walk off home run by Leon Culberson’s grandson Charlie that clinched the Dodgers 2016 pennant in the last home game announced by Scully connected the two ends of Vin’s career.  Hopefully it presages an even better future where people of every color, every nationality, every religion, every gender and every walk of life can feel welcome to participate in the glorious game of baseball without harassment, whether as player, administrator, owner, reporter or fan.

It seems to me that Vin, who developed a rooting interest in baseball for the underdog, is pleased to have seen and broadcast the growth in diversity in baseball over the past 67 years.  And if the most popular personality in Los Angeles Dodgers history is someone whose first rooting interest was the New York Giants (and still admits a soft spot in his heart for the Giants) can anyone doubt that miracles still happen?

The Los Angeles Dodgers celebrate their 2017 NLCS victory. Shortstop Charlie Culberson (#37), who went 3 for 5 in the game and batted .455 in the series in place of injured Corey Seager, joins the celebration on the left.

At a time when the reputation of so many celebrities, especially male celebrities, is crumbling before our very eyes, I still feel comfortable honoring Vin Scully.  I would love to meet Vin and Sandi Scully.  My mind floods with questions I could ask them, especially Vin.

Vin was correct that baseball continued without him for the most part in 2017, although there were still a few honors to send in his direction.  But he is wrong that he will soon be an afterthought in the minds of baseball fans, not only in Los Angeles but wherever talent and class are appreciated.

Who also honoured us with many honours; and when we departed, they laded us with such things as were necessary. – Acts 28:10

God bless,

Lois

Tribute to Vin Scully – Part III

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Vin Scully’s Incomparable Legacy

Vin Scully’s popularity in Los Angeles soon reached heights rarely achieved by anyone, let alone a sportscaster. While he protests that he is relatively unimportant and that the players are who matters, Dodger fans disagree.  By 1976, Dodger fans selected him as the most memorable personality in the history of the franchise, choosing him over star players like Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and Maury Wills.  And he still had another 40 years ahead of him to grow his legendary status.

Kirk Gibson celebrates his 1988 World Series Game 1 limp off home run

I remember watching games when I was three and four years old, but I only have the faintest memory of Vin Scully at that time, even though he was already the Brooklyn Dodgers number one announcer at the tender age of 28.  Then the Dodgers departed for the West Coast and I had to be content to hear him when the Dodgers were in the World Series in 1959, 1963, 1965, 1966 and 1974.  Then, when the World Series used network announcers rather than home team announcers from 1977 to 1989 and alternated between NBC and ABC, I got to hear him in the even number years 1984, 1986 and 1988 when Vin was also NBC’s primary announcer for their Saturday Game of the Week.  As luck would have it, the Dodgers returned to the World Series in 1988 and Scully was at the mic when Kirk Gibson gimped into the batter’s box and hit the game-winning home run off of the A’s Dennis Eckersley to spark the Dodgers to a World Series victory in 5 games.

I also would have listened to Vin many times on a Saturday afternoon NBC Game of the Week from 1983 to 1989.  And I would have heard him announce the NL Championship Series in the odd numbered years during that time, as well as the All-Star Game in those same seasons.  But it was fitting that his final World Series broadcast on national television was a Dodger World Championship.   And I’m sure I put on the radio some of the time for the World Series from 1990-1997 (except for 1994 when the baseball strike cancelled the Series) when Vin moved over to CBS radio to call the games.

In recent years, I had one more series of opportunities to listen to Vin on the Internet.  I discovered that MLB.com broadcast highlights of the games, taking the feed from the local broadcasts unless the game was on national television.  As Vin’s retirement drew near, I listened more and more to get every last bit of him I could.  I’d also watch the interviews, the pre-game visits by representatives of opposing teams making their last visit to Los Angeles while he was still the Dodgers broadcaster and even the plethora of tapes of Vin from prior years, whether it was an historic call or just one of his best stories.

Over the years, Vin became known as a first rate story teller as well as the ability to coin a phrase or make an historic moment even more memorable.  Los Angeles fans learned this early on.  East coast fans, particularly those in New York, mocked L.A. fans lack of baseball knowledge when they started bringing transistor radios to Dodger games to listen to Vin describe the action on the field.  Nothing could be further from the truth as far as the fans baseball knowledge was concerned.  They had two franchises in the Pacific Coast League, a AAA level league that was given an “Open” classification from 1952-57, meaning that they were considered somewhere between AAA and the major leagues.  At one time, especially before airplane travel made teams on the west coast realistic, there was talk of making the entire PCL a third major league.  In fact, the league voted to become that in 1945, but met resistance from the two established major leagues.

In addition, due to the more moderate weather on the Pacific Coast, the PCL routinely had seasons of 170 to 200 games until the late 1950’s when the Dodgers and Giants arrived on the West Coast.  In 1905, the San Francisco Seals set a record of 230 games played.  Usually the season began in late February and ended as late as the beginning of December.  And some of the greatest players in baseball history were stars in the PCL.  Future members of the Hall of Fame who starred in the PCL include Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Tony Lazzeri, Paul Waner, Bobby Doerr, Earl Averill, Joe Gordon and Ernie Lombardi.  So L.A. fans were quite familiar with the ins and outs of baseball.

Los Angeles Dodgers first home game, April 18, 1958 at the cavernous Coliseum

The reason for the radios was the temporary home of the Dodgers from 1958-61, the Los Angeles Coliseum.  A huge stadium built for the 1932 Summer Olympics and suited for football and track and field, most of the seats were far from the action, nothing like the cozy setting of Gilmore Field (home of the Hollywood Stars from 1939-57 with seats 24 feet from first and third base and 34 feet from home plate), and L.A.’s Wrigley Field (home of the minor league Los Angeles Angels from 1925-57 and the major league Angels in their inaugural 1961 season and as cozy as its namesake in Chicago).

Dodger fans became so used to Scully’s voice while they watched home games, they continued the practice long after their team moved to spacious Dodger Stadium in 1962.  Soon after, I got my first transistor radio.  Many nights I would have that radio under my pillow, listening to Dodger games (preferably with an ear plug before it invariably broke).  Unfortunately, this meant listening to the announcers of the Dodger’s opponents as AM radio signals do not carry from Los Angeles to New York.  Of course, I easily picked up the games when the Mets played the Dodgers, but I also listened to the Pirates on KDKA, the Reds on WLW, the Cubs on WGN, the Cardinals on KMOX, the Braves (after they moved to Atlanta) on WSB and the Astros on WWL (their broadcast network station in New Orleans, the furthest I was able to DX a radio station).  At some point when the Phillies switched radio stations to one that wasn’t blocked by bleed from a NYC AM station, I listened to those games as well.  But occasionally, when the home announcer paused in his commentary, I could hear Vin’s voice from all the radios in the stands.  It created quite a challenge for the broadcast engineers to pick up the crowd noise without getting play by play to compete with the description of their own broadcast team.

Scully dared not milk his connection to the fans in the ballpark too often.  In fact the first time he tried it, he was scared to death that it would flop and leave egg on his face.  In 1963, an edict came down to strictly enforce the one second stop a pitcher was required to make in the set position with a runner on base.  Less than one second, a balk was to be called.  Not surprisingly, the early part of the 1963 season saw a sharp rise in the number of balks.  Scully, whose instincts for these things was unerring, procured a stopwatch and while another rhubarb was occurring on the field over a balk call, he instructed the crowd that when he said “one”, they were to wait exactly one second and say “two”.  The umpires and players on the field arguing were stunned when suddenly a typical Dodger Stadium crowd shouted out.  (They averaged over 31,000 per home game that season, a World Championship season for them.)  Another time, Scully delightfully surprised one of the umpires when he had the fans serenade him with “Happy Birthday” on his special day.

Sandy Koufax

Early in his career once he was the Dodgers number one announcer, Scully adopted the practice of instructing his engineer to record the ninth inning of a potential no-hitter so the pitcher, if successful, would have a memento of the event to enjoy for years to come.  He would always mention the date of the game.  With Sandy Koufax’s perfect game in 1965, he added one more element, punctuating his play by play with the time of day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WINiz0Bfb-0

Other classic calls by Scully include Gibson’s game winning home run in game one of the 1988 World Series, Hank Aaron’s home run that broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record and Bill Buckner’s error in game six of the 1986 World Series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4nwMDZYXTI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjqYThEVoSQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ujwjqIldwU

In addition to accolades from the fans and winning the Ford Frick Award which gives him a plaque in Baseball’s Hall of Fame, Vin has been honored with a lifetime Emmy award for sports broadcasting and was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1995.  He was named National Sportscaster of the Year three times and California Sportscaster of the Year 32 times, being inducted into the latter’s Hall of Fame.  He was also inducted into the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame and named by them as Sportscaster of the Century in 2000 and top sportscaster of all time in 2009.  He has also been inducted into the California Sports Hall of Fame and NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame.  The MLB Network named him the number one baseball broadcaster of all time.

Vin also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the press box at Dodger Stadium has been named for him, and streets in front of Dodger Stadium (including the official address of the stadium) and at their former Spring Training complex in Vero Beach have been named for him.  He was Grand Marshal for the 2014 Tournament of Roses Parade, was the 14^th recipient (only the second non-player after Rachel Robinson) of the baseball Commissioner’s Historic Achievement Award and was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom last November, the highest civilian award bestowed by the President of the United States.

Recently, Scully’s commentary for the last Brooklyn Dodgers-New York Giants game has been selected for preservation by the Library of Congress.  The first major league baseball game that I ever saw was the game the day before.  I saw the last game between the two teams in New York that the Dodgers won.  The Giants won the final game between the two teams in New York in September 1957.

Barber visits Scully in the broadcast booth before a World Series game at Dodger Stadium

As good as Red Barber was, it is reasonable to say that the protégé far surpassed his teacher, both in longevity and in tributes from peers and fans.  Indeed Barber seemed to get somewhat bitter toward the game in the later years, and also tended to disparage most broadcasters who stepped from the baseball diamond into the broadcast booth.  Vin was admired throughout baseball, and his farewell year was a series of tributes from players, managers and broadcasters from the Dodgers’ opponents when they made their last trip to Dodger Stadium or from the Giants when Vin did his last broadcast in San Francisco.  And Vin was highly appreciated by the umpires.  At some point, they began to salute Vin before the start of games that he worked.  Vin never second-guessed the umpires on a call, although he would accurately report when someone on the field took exception to what one of the men in blue ruled.  Vin took the position that the umpires wanted to get every call right and did their best to do so.

Vin was the first to acknowledge that fortune smiled on him throughout his career and that only God could have made it possible to do what he loved for 67 years.  This is not to say that Vin hasn’t experienced tragedy in his life.  Vin married in 1958, a very pretty young woman named Joan.  Their first child, Michael, was born a few years later, and two more children followed.  Joan died in January 1972 at age 35 of an accidental overdose of medicine that she was taking to get relief from bronchitis and a severe cold.  And Michael died in a helicopter crash at age 33 while inspecting oil pipelines for leaks immediately following the Northridge earthquake of January 1994.

No one can replace the people we’ve lost.  But Vin would find love again, a mother for his children, plus two stepchildren and one more child with his second wife.  And there was a bit of irony to it.  The Fordham Rams alumnus was visiting the offices of the Los Angeles Rams one day.  While there, he met the executive assistant to Rams owner, Carroll Rosenbloom.  She thought it was a chance meeting, that he was there for another purpose.  In fact, he was tipped off to her presence in the Rams front office and went specifically to meet her.

(Vin Scully’s Hall of Fame induction speech upon winning the Ford C. Frick Award in 1982: many times the video features a younger Sandi Scully.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3vvbUYj0Zs )

Transplanted to L.A. from North Carolina, Sandra Jean Schaefer (nee Hunt) and Vin started to date following that setup and were married in 1973.  A big baseball fan, she is also athletic and they share a love of golf and swimming.

Vin and his beautiful bride, Sandi

No longer would Koufax or Amoros be the most memorable Sandy in Vin’s life (even if she spells it with an “i”).  Sandi Scully has been by his side ever since, including many times while he was working a game and especially on the most memorable days at the end of his career, his final games as a broadcaster and the times he has been feted on and off the field.  44 years later, Sandi Scully is still a stunningly beautiful woman and her love for her husband (and his for her) shone through every moment.  Their blended family now boasts six children, sixteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD. – Proverbs 18:22

God bless,

Lois

Tribute to Vin Scully – Part II

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My family: fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Red Barber

Marquee from the third Madison Square Garden (1925-1968)

To trace my love affair with the Dodgers and my admiration for Vin Scully, it goes back to July 15, 1910 when my dad was born in the Ridgewood neighborhood of New York City on the Brooklyn-Queens border.  My dad contracted polio when he was four years old and it prevented the muscle in his left calf from properly developing.  So he was never an athlete, although he loved to fish and occasionally go hunting.  But he knew his sports and he talked about going to different sporting events in his younger days such as watching the New York Rangers play hockey in their early years.  He took my brother and me to our first Dodger games before they left for California and our first hockey game to watch the Rangers play the Red Wings in Madison Square Garden (the one between 49^th and 50^th Streets) in the early 60’s.  And it was natural that he would be a Dodger fan based on where he lived from the day he was born to the day the Dodgers left town.

When we were younger, my dad would play catch with us.  And one of my memories is when we bought a sheet of plywood to become a basketball backboard, tied it to the car, got on the Thruway and had to reach out the window to hold it down until we could get off at the next exit and travel at a slower, safer speed.  My brother and I would always have a supply of sports equipment at our disposal.

In the early 1930’s my mom moved to NYC from Ohio with her mother.  She also was no athlete.  But she loved to dance and she loved watching the boys play baseball in the neighborhood parks.  And based on her pictures as a young woman, I know they enjoyed watching her, too.  But the boys of Youngstown’s loss was my dad’s gain.  After a few years of courting, my parents married in September 1937.  It was a marriage that lasted until my dad died in March 2002.  As fate would have it, the marriage began at one of the biggest turning points in Dodger history.

While the Dodgers’ crosstown rivals, the Giants and Yankees would be going to their second straight World Series, the Dodgers not only limped home to one of their typical 6^th places finishes (ahead of Philadelphia and Cincinnati), they were close to going out of business.  Bill collectors waited in the team’s office to get paid.  They couldn’t call: the phones had been shut off for non-payment.

Larry MacPhail

The Dodger owners had been squabbling, which was part of the team’s problem. Finally in desperation, they asked NL President Ford Frick in early 1938 what he thought they should do.  Frick suggested they hire a strong general manager, someone who could rebuild the team.  When they asked Frick for a name, Frick asked Branch Rickey for a suggestion on who could turn the team around.  Rickey gave them the name of Larry MacPhail who had begun to turn the Cincinnati Reds around (even though they finished last in 1937, the team MacPhail started to build won the NL Pennant in 1939 and 1940) until he had a falling out with Reds’ owner Powell Crosley.

MacPhail took the job only when given the assurance that he would have the money necessary to rebuild the team.  Even though the Dodgers were deep in debt at the time, the Brooklyn Trust Company (already heavily involved financially with the team) gave the assurance to MacPhail and team owners.  Whether it was due to MacPhail’s reputation as a shrewd baseball man, his family’s wealth or sheer desperation to recoup their investment, MacPhail now had working capital.  Before he left the team at the end of the 1942 season, what had been the financially weakest team in baseball was now on solid footing and with a solid team that only needed to wait until the end of World War II to dominate the National League for the next decade.

Ebbets Field

MacPhail did three things to make the Dodgers a respectable contending team.  He fixed up Ebbets Field to make it a comfortable experience for the fans, and also installed lights for night baseball, just as he had done in Cincinnati.  His eye for talent and bargains enabled him to build a competitive veteran team from carefully chosen castoffs like Dixie Walker, Hugh Casey and Whitlow Wyatt and acquire others like Dolph Camilli, Billy Herman, Mickey Owen, Pee Wee Reese and Kirby Higbe from teams looking to unload them for one reason or another.  Meanwhile, he hired scouts and bought minor league teams to obtain one talented potential major league regular.  A future Dodger star who came to the Dodgers with the rest of his minor league team was Carl Furillo.  And to promote the team, he ignored the agreement the three NYC teams had made to not broadcast their games on radio.  He didn’t have enough time to do that for his first season in Brooklyn.  But he negotiated with General Mills to sponsor the broadcasts and entered into an agreement with 50,000 watt station WOR to air the games.  By the start of the 1939 season, he was ready to go.  To complete the process, he hired the broadcaster that he previously hired in Cincinnati: Red Barber.

My mom already enjoyed baseball, but Red Barber made her a Dodger fan.  Once the Dodgers started broadcasting their games, my dad asked my mom to keep track of what happened during the Dodger game while he was at work.  It was Red Barber’s descriptions that kept her interest and made it easy.  She loved his laid-back, down home style and his calm voice.  She became a Red Barber fan for life.  And many baseball fans in the New York Metropolitan Area, especially Dodger fans, felt the same way.

Red Barber, Connie Desmond and Vince Scully (L to R)

Red Barber and Vin Scully first connected a little over ten years after Barber arrived in New York.  The native New Yorker met the transplanted Southerner in the fall of 1949.  Scully was a recent Fordham graduate, and he had done summer fill-in work in Washington, DC, on a CBS affiliate.  Once he returned to New York, one of his stops was CBS to deliver his resume and letters of reference.  Redhead briefly met redhead that day and something about that young man impressed Barber.  Ironically, their first work together involved football, not baseball.

In 1949, CBS Radio had a college football program, Football Roundup, featuring the top games each week on Saturday with broadcasters at each game providing a remote feed to give updates on the progress of their game.  Barber was in the CBS studio in NYC coordinating the program switching from game to game and giving the cue to the next announcer to give a quick update.  As Vin recalls, there were 4 games covered simultaneously on any given Saturday, so each announcer had to stick to the basics.

As Saturday was fast approaching one week in November, they suddenly found themselves an announcer short.  Try as they might, no other sportscaster was available on such short notice.  Barber remembered that “young fellow” who had stopped by recently.  And soon Vin was heading up to Boston to broadcast the Boston University-Maryland game from Fenway Park.

Football at Fenway

Fortune smiled on Vin just to get this opportunity.  It smiled on him again during the game.  By the second half, none of the other games were close.  The only interesting contest was the game at Fenway (which Maryland won, 14-13).  And pretty soon, Vin would say, “And back to you in New York, Red.”  And Barber would reply, “And we’re sending it right back to you, young fellow.”

Vin also had some bad luck that day.  Or so he thought.  It turned out that his alma mater, Fordham, was playing Boston College that day, also in Boston.  There was going to be a dance after the Fordham game that he wanted to attend, being single at the time.  He didn’t want to be encumbered with extra clothes at the dance, so he left his hat, coat and gloves in his hotel room.  Since he was working for CBS, he assumed he would be broadcasting from the broadcasting booth.

Instead, he found himself up on the roof of Fenway, with the sound engineer, a card table and a long length of cable.  The chilly winds quickly blew away his notes.  The temperature was in the low 40’s.  And at the end of the game, Vin thought he blew his big chance, that the cold, windy conditions adversely affected the quality of his broadcast.  But even though he expected a booth, he was still young and green enough that he didn’t complain.

On Monday, a representative of Boston University called Barber to apologize for the horrendous conditions under which the announcer had to work.  When he explained the details, both the quality of Vin’s work and the quality of his character rose in Barber’s mind.  Barber called Vin to tell him he would have a booth the following week at the Yale Bowl.  He was assigned to the Harvard-Yale game.

Ernie Harwell was the broadcaster originally assigned to the Boston University-Maryland game.  He was not the announcer who became ill.  He was reassigned to replace that announcer for what was considered to be a better game, the North Carolina-Notre Dame contest at Yankee Stadium.  But North Carolina’s star running back, Charlie Justice, was injured, and Notre Dame was en route to an undefeated season and #1 ranking in the country.  Notre Dame won easily, 42-6.  So Scully ended up with the best game instead of Harwell.

Harwell had a second role in this narrative.  In 1948, Barber was suffering from a bleeding ulcer.  Harwell was an up and coming, highly regarded announcer for his hometown Atlanta Crackers team in the Southern Association.  There was only time in major league history that a player was traded for a broadcaster.  Branch Rickey traded a minor league catcher, Cliff Dapper, to Atlanta to acquire the services of Harwell to fill the breach left by Barber’s infirmity.  Harwell stayed as part of the Dodgers broadcasting team in 1949, but he was chafing under Barber’s demanding nature as the top man in the booth.  He found a temporary home uptown.

Through 1948, the Yankees and Giants shared broadcasters and a radio network, but in 1949, they each went their own way to broadcast their team’s entire 154 game schedule.  Mel Allen went with the Yankees and Russ Hodges went with the Giants as the respective #1 announcer.  And the Giants gladly grabbed the dissatisfied Harwell to add to their broadcast booth in 1950.  This was a time of baseball sportscasting excellence in New York City.  All five broadcasters mentioned are in the Baseball Hall of Fame and have received numerous similar honors.

Barber had the lead role in choosing a successor to Harwell, to join him and Connie Desmond in the Dodgers broadcast booth.  He might have chosen Al Helfer, with whom he had worked in Cincinnati and Brooklyn before Al enlisted in the Navy at the start of WWII.  He was not tied to any particular baseball team at the time.  Or he might have chosen another experienced baseball announcer.  But he had a dream for quite a while of taking a promising but inexperienced announcer and molding him into a top flight broadcaster.  He decided that Scully filled the bill and Branch Rickey seconded his decision.  Never was the perspicacious Barber more correct.

Indeed Scully found Barber to be as stern a taskmaster as Harwell did in those early years.  But the easy-going Desmond was a counterbalancing force, quick to throw his arm around the chastised young broadcaster, console him and encourage him.  Where Barber was the strict father figure (indeed he thought of Vin as the son he never had), Desmond was the big brother who lifted his spirits and told him it would all work out.

Then fortune smiled on Vin again during his fourth season with the Dodgers.  In 1953, the Dodgers and Yankees repeated as league champions and met in the World Series.  The year before, NBC had the #1 announcer from each team split the play by play for every game.  That paired Mel Allen and Red Barber.  But they weren’t paid by NBC.  They were paid by the primary sponsor, Gillette.  They offered a tiny sum to the broadcasters, believing they should consider it an honor to be chosen.  Barber wanted more, but Gillette felt no reason to budge.  By 1953, Walter O’Malley had become principal owner of the Dodgers.  Even though Barber was brought into major league baseball in Cincinnati and Brooklyn by Larry MacPhail, Barber and Branch Rickey had developed a close friendship.  Barber felt a strong loyalty to Rickey and that stuck in O’Malley’s craw after he forced out Rickey as Dodgers President.

Barber informed O’Malley of the impasse with Gillette.  O’Malley, as a powerful owner of a very successful team in the number one media market, could have gone to bat for Barber and put pressure on Gillette and NBC.  Instead, he chose not to, telling Barber it was not his problem.  That led to two important vacancies.  Most immediate was who would be the Dodgers representative on the national telecasts.  The choice was between the more experienced Desmond and Scully who was fairly well-seasoned by now.  But Desmond also declined to work the Series for reasons not reported, but it might have been related to some obligations to broadcast college football.  That’s how Scully became the youngest person to broadcast a World Series game.

(Scully worked the World Series with the Yankees #1 broadcaster, Mel Allen. Here’s Mel doing the voice over on a vintage Gillette TV commercial of the era.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9KVfn2-EEU )

The second choice that had to be made was who would be the new number one man in the Dodger broadcast booth in 1954.  The logical choice was Desmond.  But the pressure of being number one drove him to the bottle even more.  Helfer was brought back in to the job he left after the 1941 season, but more and more Scully was emerging as the top man.  Finally during the 1955 season, O’Malley fired Desmond because of missed broadcasts.  Desmond pleaded for one more chance and was reinstated for the 1956 season, but the O’Malley’s patience was exhausted that year.  He never announced for another major league baseball team again.

A rare picture of Jerry Doggett without Vin Scully

The Dodgers brought in Jerry Doggett to finish out the 1956 season.  Even though Doggett was ten years older, Scully had seven full years of major league broadcasting experience.  Doggett had only three years doing one major league game a week on the Mutual network.  By that season, less than 30 years of age, Vin Scully was the number one Dodger announcer and would eventually be recognized by most observers as the number one baseball announcer anywhere.

Knowing a good thing when he had it, O’Malley resisted the pressure to leave Scully and Doggett behind when the team moved to Los Angeles in the 1958 season.  Soon the Los Angelenos forgot all about the idea of their local favorites doing the broadcasts.  Doggett, still another redhead, was well-liked and stayed behind the mike for Dodger games until the end of the 1987 season when he was 71 years old, just missing out on the Dodgers most recent World Championship season.  He passed away in 1997.  Chris Carter, creator of the X-Files, named characters after both Scully and Doggett on the show.

The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage. – Psalm 16:6

God bless,

Lois

Tribute to Vin Scully – Part I

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24 second clock, Alaska, Baseball Hall of Fame, Boston Braves, Communist Party, credit card, Dodgers, fast food, goalie mask, Harry Truman, Hawaii, interstate banks, Ivy League, Jacques Plante, Joseph Stalin, Loving v Virginia, Major League Baseball, Montgomery bus boycott, NBA, NFL, NHL, NL Playoffs, NL West pennant, outer space, Pete Gogolak, Philadelphia Phillies, Plessy v Ferguson, Queen Elizabeth II, racial segregation, relief pitcher, Rickey Henderson, Sam Jethroe, St. Louis, stolen bases, United Nations, USSR, Vern Bickford, Vin Scully, women's rights, World Series

The changes in the U.S. and the World during his baseball announcing career

Vin Scully – Brooklyn Dodgers announcer

There is a lot going on in my life right now, as well as in the life of people I care about.  It has made it more difficult for me to contribute to my blog.  I am working on a post more relevant to the main theme of my blog, but it is a difficult one and it is still in progress.  I also plan to post on some recent experiences of mine, interleaved with this series on Vin Scully.

I also haven’t written as much lately about my passion, the Dodgers.  Quite frankly I was not optimistic last year about their chances compared to the previous years when they won the NL West title.  And I was very surprised when they overcame many question marks and injuries to key players and made it to the NL Championship Series.  This year, I have been much more optimistic about the Dodgers’ chances and that assessment was borne out.  A recent horrific slump has nullified what was a near record-setting pace, although they bounced back to have the best regular season record and made it to the World Series for the first time since 1988.

But more important to me was my desire to salute one of the few remaining famous people in the world that I can admire totally without reservation.  I have never met him, though I’d like to.  So my assessment of him is based on all the accounts I have read or heard: that he is a talented, kind, generous and humble man.  One post will not do him justice.  This will by necessity be a multi-part series.  And I didn’t want to post it until all the pieces were in place.

Queen Elizabeth II early in her reign

Last year at this time, there were two famous people in the world essentially doing the same thing they were doing when I was born.  Now only one is left: Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and Head of the British Commonwealth.  Hall of Fame baseball announcer Vin Scully retired last fall after announcing Dodger baseball games since April 1950.

To give you an idea of how much has changed in baseball, sports and the world in general since April 1950, here are a few facts:

• The number of major league baseball teams increased from 16 to 30 during this time.
• There were no major league teams west of St. Louis in 1950.
• Teams still routinely traveled by trains and jet airline passenger service didn’t begin to become commonplace until the end of the 1950’s (after some disasters with British jet passenger aircraft a few years earlier).
• The Dodgers opponent for Scully’s first regular season broadcast (one inning of a game in Philadelphia on 4/18/50), the Phillies, were still segregated in 1950. They wouldn’t have a black player until 7 years later.  On the same day as Scully’s first broadcast, Sam “The Jet” Jethroe made his debut with the Boston Braves, making them the sixth major league team to have a black player on the field in a regular season game since the end of the 19^th century. 
  

  Sam Jethroe – Boston Braves

• Jethroe led the major leagues in stolen bases that year with 35. In 2016, the major league stolen base leader had 62 steals (Jonathan Villar of the Brewers).  Under the modern definition of stolen base, a player has stolen more than 100 bases in a season 8 times with a record 130 by Rickey Henderson.  All of those seasons occurred after 1961.
• 1950 World Series (Yankees versus Phillies) was the last World Series where neither team had a black player.
• Vern Bickford of the Braves led the major leagues in innings pitched (312 and complete games (27). In 2016, David Price led in innings pitched (230) and Chris Sale led in complete games (6).  Relief pitchers were not referred to as closers in 1950 and with rare exceptions were the pitchers not considered good enough to be starters; the save was not yet an official category.  Today, late inning relief work is a specialty (especially to close out a win) and some of the most talented pitchers are in that role.
• In 1950 the average time it took to play a 9-inning game was two hours and eighteen minutes. In 2016, it was three hours and two minutes, the first time the three hour mark was eclipsed.
• Minor Leagues were divided into classes AAA, AA, A, B, C and D. Now the divisions are AAA, AA, A, Rookie.
• In 1950, there were 58 different leagues in those classifications plus the independent Mexican League (now part of Organized Baseball’s structure) for a total of 454 teams. This year, there are 176 teams in 15 leagues.
• There was no designated hitter or free agency in baseball. Nor was there any interleague play during the regular season.  There were no video replays of umpires’ decisions.  And baseball bats at all levels of play were made of wood.
• Major league players left their gloves on the field at the end of an inning when they came in to hit. That practice was outlawed in 1954.
• In 1950, the average payroll for an entire team was $432,568 ($4,425,244 in buying power today, about the same as the average salary for one major league player now). The current minimum major league salary for one player is $535,000.
• Baseball schedules featured such items as single admission doubleheaders and Ladies Day games in which a woman accompanied by a man was admitted to the game at no charge.
  

  Pete Gogolak (Cornell ’64), first successful soccer style placekicker in American football

• Football kickers approached place kicks straight on rather than soccer style.
• College football was considerably more popular than professional football.
• The NFL admitted three teams from the All-America Football Conference before the start of the 1950 season for a total of 13 teams (compared to 32 now).
• The 1949-50 season was the first year of the NBA, a merger between the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League. They had a total of 17 teams divided into three divisions.  By the start of that 1954-55 season, the league was reduced to eight teams in two divisions. It would not expand again until the 1961-62 season.  In the season just concluded, there were 30 teams divided into two conferences of three divisions each.
• The 24 second shot clock in the NBA was five seasons away.
• NBA teams would play games at neutral courts until the practice was generally abandoned after the 1973-74 season.
• The NHL had been reduced to six teams by the 1942-43 season due to the economic effects of the Great Depression and loss of players during WWII. It would not expand until the 1967-68 season when it doubled in size.  There are currently 30 teams.
  

  Jacques Plante dons the mask for the first time in a regular season NHL game.

• No NHL goalies wore face masks. The first to do so for the remainder of his career was Jacques Plante in 1959.  With the retirement of Andy Brown after the 1976-77 season, all hockey goalies at the major league level wear masks.  It is now a requirement in the NHL for goalies to wear masks, and the rest of the players to wear helmets.
• Ivy League: While the term was used as early as the mid-1930’s and championships in some sports were held prior to 1950 (for example the Heptagonal Games: originally all the Ivies except Brown), the league didn’t become official until 1954.
• The President of the United States was Harry S. Truman.
• Alaska and Hawaii were still territories of the United States.
• The doctrine of “separate but equal” from the Supreme Court decision in Plessy v Ferguson was still the law of the land. The Supreme Court had not yet overturned laws prohibiting interracial marriage in some states.  That didn’t occur until Loving v Virginia in 1967.  The Montgomery bus boycott would not occur until December 1955.
• Women’s rights: In 1950, women could be fired for getting pregnant; could be rejected for employment simply on the basis of gender; could be discriminated against in the classroom. Women could not report sexual harassment in the workplace as a form of discrimination; could not apply for credit on her own (especially married women); could not open a bank account without the permission of her husband or near male relative; could not refuse to have sex with her husband; could not use domestic violence as grounds for divorce in some states; could not practice law or sit on a jury in some states.
• There were 60 members of the United Nations in 1950 with the addition of Indonesia. There are currently 193 members.
• Joseph Stalin was the head of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics by virtue of being General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. There is no more Soviet Union.  As to the Communist Party, opinions vary.
• There were four independent nations on the continent of Africa in 1950: Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia and South Africa. Today there are fifty-four.
• Common everyday items of today that either did not exist or were rare in 1950: home computers, laser printers, color printers, 3-D printers, caller ID, cell phones, the Internet with hand-held devices to access it, e-mail, blogs and vlogs, hand-held video cameras affordable for the average citizen, digital photography, CD’s and DVD’s, ATM’s, practical light-emitting diodes (LED’s) used in a wide variety of devices, color TV, flat-screen TV’s many times the size of the early TV tubes in 1950, remote control, instant replay, TV dinners, transistor radios (making it much easier for LA Dodger fans to listen to Scully while at the game), passenger jets, IRA and other qualified retirement accounts (like 401K’s), microwave ovens, automatic doors, diet soda, pop-top cans, Velcro, bubble wrap, roll on deodorant, oral contraceptives, ultrasound, and child safety car seats.
  

  What insomniacs looked at after the last late movie until programming resumed in the morning.

• Things which have pretty much disappeared since 1950: vinyl records (although they are making a comeback with some aficionados), record stores, telegrams and related services (like Candygrams – how would the Saturday Night Live shark get people to open the door now?), TV antennas, TV test patterns, the teaching of penmanship, two point seat belts (either the lap belt or sash belt, but not both), drive-in theaters, maps given away at gas stations, milk and other dairy product deliveries, Polaroids and other instant cameras, home movies on 8mm film, rotary phones, typewriters, carbon paper, slide rules, filmstrips, vacuum tubes (and tube testers).
  

  when floppy disks became rigid

• Things which have come and gone since 1950: 8-track and cassette tapes, video tapes (especially Betamax) and video rental stores (like Blockbuster), gigantic boomboxes, analog television, splash tones during cable TV programs, dial-up Internet and external modems, floppy disks, slide projectors, mimeographs and spirit duplicators aka ditto machines (and sniffing the paper), pull tabs on cans.
• AT&T and its subsidiaries had a monopoly on providing phone service and equipment to the general public, while the U.S. post office had no significant competition in the delivery of first class mail. Air Mail was a separate category; like the long distance phone call, it could become very expensive.
• Banks were not permitted to cross state lines (i.e. have branches in more than one state).
• While fast food restaurants date back to 1919 (A&W), the term fast food was not added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary until 1951. While McDonald’s existed since 1940 (as a BBQ restaurant until 1948), it didn’t have its first franchise with the golden arches until 1953.
• Major companies which did not exist in 1950 include Walmart (1962), Microsoft (1975), Apple (1976) and Starbucks (1971).
• Mankind had not yet come close to reaching outer space. The first artificial satellite into earth orbit would not be launched until 1957, the first person reaching outer space in 1961 and the moon in 1969.
• $1 in 1950 had the purchasing power of about $10.15 when Scully retired. The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened at a little over 200 at the beginning of 1950. It was over 18,000 when Scully retired.
• Diner’s Club introduced the first credit card in 1950.

So that gives you an idea of some of the changes in baseball and sports in general, as well as geopolitical and socio-economic changes since 1950.

Vin Scully has been behind the microphone of the Dodgers the entire time.  He was a fine announcer when doing football play by play or describing a golf match.  But it was his career announcing baseball that sets him apart from the rest of the broadcasting profession.  No one has done it longer or better.  And he did it for only one team.  It happens to be the team I have always rooted for since my earliest memories of baseball at age three when the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn.

I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him. – Ecclesiastes 3:14

God bless,

Lois