On April 11, 2016, the Los Angeles Dodgers held a ceremony to officially rename a portion of Elysian Park Avenue to Vin Scully Ave., in honor of the legendary broadcaster. It changed the address at Dodger Stadium to 1000 Vin Scully Avenue.
The honor was finalized two months after the L.A. City Council unanimously passed a motion to rename the portion of Elysian Park Ave. that runs from Sunset Boulevard to Dodger Stadium Way.
L.A. City Councilmember Gilbert Cedillo, who filed the motion, Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, and Dodgers Spanish-language broadcasters Jorge Jarrín and Pepe Yñiguez were among those to attend the ceremony.
So too did Roz Wyman, a former city Councilmember and the person primarily responsible for helping the Dodgers move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. Dodgers broadcaster Charley Steiner emceed the dedication, with Cedillo, Garcetti and Kasten among those to speak prior to Scully taking center stage at the podium.
“Hi, everybody, and a very pleasant good afternoon to you,” Scully began, to rousing applause. “I had to get that out, because in all honesty if you asked me this very minute, ‘How do you feel about what’s going on?’
“I would honestly say to you, overwhelmed. I really am.”
Scully blessed listeners with his poetic calls for more than six decades, but during the ceremony he jokingly rebuffed it as a sign of success. “When you say, ’67 years doing the same job,’ I also think, ‘Sure, sure, but no advancement,'” he quipped.
As the crowd chanted “one more year” at the end of Scully’s speech, with a chuckle he responded, “I’ve given it a lot of consideration, and no thank you.” The ceremony was hardly the end for Scully, as a full home-game slate awaited him during the 2016 season.
And while the day was about celebration of a storied career, the end was not far from Scully’s mind. “Maybe on the final day of my final broadcast, I’ll somehow come up with the magic words that you deserve,” he said. “As for now, I have only two magic words: Thank you.”
The Dodgers went on to honor and recognize and Scully throughout his final season in the broadcast booth, and the team memorably clinched the National League West title with Charlie Culberson’s walk-off home run in the final home game of the year.
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