Tributes Pour In For Late Vin Scully, Dodgers Voice For 67 Years

LOS ANGELES — Tributes poured in Tuesday for Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully, who died Tuesday night at 94, and whose voice became synonymous with Dodgers baseball in Brooklyn and Los Angeles for 67 years.

Scully died at his home in the Hidden Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, the team said. No cause of death was provided.

"He was the best there ever was," pitcher Clayton Kershaw said after the Dodgers' game in San Francisco. "Just such a special man. I'm grateful and thankful I got to know him as well as I did."

Scully was the longest tenured broadcaster with a single team in pro sports history, according to The Associated Press. He bore witness to the 1950s era of Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson, the 1960s with Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax, the 1970s with Steve Garvey and Don Sutton, and through the 1980s with Orel Hershiser and Fernando Valenzuela. In the 1990s, he called games featuring Mike Piazza and Hideo Nomo, then Kershaw, Manny Ramirez and Yasiel Puig in the 21st century.

"You gave me my Wild Horse name. You gave me love. You hugged me like a father," tweeted Puig, an outfielder who debuted with the Dodgers in 2013. "I will never forget you, my heart is broken."

Since World War II, Scully remained a constant for a team that changed players, executives, owners and cities. He became a national figure, calling Games of the Week, All-Star Games, the playoffs and more than two dozen World Series, The New York Times reported. In 2009, Scully was voted the No. 1 sportscaster of all time by the American Sportscasters Association.

Scully opened broadcasts with a simple hello.

"Hi, everybody, and a very pleasant good evening to you wherever you may be," he would say.

Scully considered himself a conduit between the game and the fans, according to AP.

Rob Manfred, the commissioner of the MLB, said Scully's voice "played a memorable role in some of the greatest moments in the history of our sport."

"I am proud that Vin was synonymous with baseball because he embodied the very best of our national pastime," Manfred said.

Vincent Edward Scully was born Nov. 29, 1927, in the Bronx. His father, a silk salesman, died of pneumonia when Scully was 7. Scully's family then moved to Brooklyn, where Scully grew up playing stickball in the streets, according to AP.

Scully began broadcasting at Ebbets Field in 1950 at 22 after graduating from Fordham University, according to The Times. When the team moved to Los Angeles eight years later, fans at the Coliseum brought hand-held transister radios to hear his call of the game.

"There's not a better storyteller and I think everyone considers him family," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "He was in our living rooms for many generations. He lived a fantastic life, a legacy that will live on forever."

Fellow sports broadcaster Bob Costas previously told The Arizona Republic he was one of those people who listened to Scully's calls with a transistor radio, keeping one under his pillow in the 1960s.

"I regard him, all things considered, as the master of radio and TV, Costas said.

He added:"I regard him as the best baseball announcer ever."

Team president and CEO Stan Kasten said the team "lost an icon."

"His voice will always be heard and etched in all of our minds forever," Kasten said.

Scully was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982 and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that same year. The stadium's press box was named for him in 2001, and the street leading to Dodger Stadium's main gate was named in his honor in 2016.

That same year, he also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.

"God has been so good to me to allow me to do what I'm doing," Scully said before retiring. "A childhood dream that came to pass and then giving me 67 years to enjoy every minute of it. That's a pretty large thanksgiving day for me."

Below are other tributes to Scully.

"RIP Vin Scully, inarguably the greatest baseball broadcaster ever, 94," tweeted New York Post baseball columnist Jon Heyman. "He broadcast Dodgers baseball for 67 years and was without peer. 94."

"He truly found a way to connect with everyone," tweeted Eric Stephen baseball writer for SB Nation who covers the Dodgers.

"He was more than a sports announcer; he became the most trusted public figure in this city's history," wrote fellow baseball writer Bill Plashke. "He was not only the greatest Dodger broadcaster, he was the greatest Los Angeles Dodger, period."

"Vin Scully filled the silence with breathtaking stories and the highlights with silence," tweeted Darren Rovell, sports and business reporter at Action Network. "After Kirk Gibson's home run landed, Vin Scully didn't talk for more than a minute."

The Associated Press contributed reporting.