'It's Time For Dodger Baseball,' Vin Scully Said for the Last Time at Dodger Stadium

LOS ANGELES, CA -- Vin Scully took a cue from a producer, at 1:05 p.m. Sunday, and for the last time said the line that millions of Californians could recite by heart:

"It's time for Dodger Baseball, live from Dodger Stadium. Sportsnet L.A. presents the Dodgers, as they take on the Colorado Rockies.

"Hi everybody, and a very pleasant Sunday to you, wherever you may be. We're at Dodger Stadium for the final home game of the regular season."

And with the humility and grace that has been Vin Scully's trademark over 67 seasons, he did the entire opening segment of Sunday's potential division-clinching game game without once mentioning it would be his last home appearance.

But from the start of the game, Scully was saluted by players -- who all tipped their hats towards the booth from the box at home -- and the fans -- who carried hundreds of signs and thousands of pictures of him.

Early in the game, the camera captured one child holding a sign that said "thanks, Mr. Scully, for a lifetime of memories."

"Oh bless your heart," Scully said. "You folks have given me a ton of memories I will treasure on this so-called job.

"I have never worked in my life."

"I am terribly embarrassed," Scully said following the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-3 victory 10-inning over the Colorado Rockies that assured them of their fourth consecutive National League West Division championship.

"I was hoping that we would win the game 10-0 and there would be no tension and it would be a nice, easy day because I have a very, very small modest contribution on my last day," Scully told the crowd announced at 51,962.

"I have always felt that you folks in the stands have been far, far important to me. You have given me enthusiasm. You have given me young at heart.

"Believe me when I tell you I've needed you far more than you needed me. I wanted to try and express my appreciation to all the players, God bless them, and to all you folks here in the ballpark.

"It's a very modest thing. I sang this for my wife. It was a loving gesture. You know the song, 'Wind Beneath My Wings.'

"That's what you are. You are the wind beneath the team's wings. You're my wind. I know it's modest. I know it's an amateur. Do you mind listening?"

After the crowd cheered, the recording played, while Scully had his left arm around his wife Sandra.

Dodger batters tipped their helmets to Scully before their first at-bats and several of his grandchildren visited him in the broadcast booth.

The broadcast returned from one commercial break with Sportsnet LA showing a picture of Scully's predecessor at the Dodgers' microphone, the legendary Red Barber, in a New York radio studio with renowned slugger and New York Yankee great Babe Ruth, who also spent time as a Dodgers coach.

Scully recalled learning how to call a game from Barber.

"I remember, Red saying to me, 'I don't want you to listen to me,' but I was listening (to him)," Scully recalled of the experience six decades ago in Brooklyn.

"And all of a sudden my friends said, 'you know, you're dropping your Gs', and I said, 'What do you mean?' And they said 'You are starting to talk Southern."'

Scully recalled as a child being given a free ticket to a New York Giants game by the Police Athletic League. He remembered being drawn with other youths to a crowd in the right field upper deck of the Giants' home field, the Polo Grounds.

"And like very other kid I ran over to the commotion," Scully said. "And there in the middle, and just the way you would picture him, polo coat and cap, there was Babe Ruth -- not signing autographs.

"What he was doing was, he said 'no no no signatures,' and he handed out business cards, and on the business card there was his autograph.

"I got one," Scully related. "And I lost it."

The 88-year-old Scully has said his final game will be next Sunday, when the Dodgers will be playing in San Francisco, because it comes 80 years to the day when he saw a sign at a laundry in his native New York City reporting the score of Game 2 of the World Series that day -- New York Yankees 18, New York Giants 4, that prompted him to become a baseball fan.

"It seems like the plan was laid out for me, and all I had to do was follow the instructions," Scully said.

On the day after his final game, Scully said "maybe the first thing I'll do is take my watch off and put it in the drawer and just think 'I can do anything I want,' which probably will be have a nice breakfast, read the papers, maybe take a walk and get a good book and read that book."

Scully said that in retirement he'll most miss "the people who have just made me feel so much at home."

-- City News Service, photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Dodgers