While Vin Scully enjoyed retirement away from Dodger Stadium for much of the regular season, he’s attended multiple playoff games as the Los Angeles Dodgers push toward their first World Series since 1988.
Scully stepped away from the booth after 67 illustrious seasons in a career that began with the franchise still in Brooklyn. He’s been on the call for memorable moments involving the Dodgers, other teams in the World Series, Super Bowls, and more.
Under the modern format, Scully has relinquished his duties as voice of the Dodgers for the playoffs, and politely declined overtures to join a national booth during the postseason.
When Justin Turner hit a walk-off home run in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series, it was easy to wonder how Scully would’ve delivered the moment.
He explained Bill Shaikin of the L.A. Times it would not have been much:
“I wouldn’t have said much,” he said. “I would have just said, as always, ‘It’s gone,’ and then shut up.”
And then Scully chuckled.
“I do my best work saying nothing,” he said.
Turner’s walk-off home run in the playoffs is only the second such hit in Dodgers franchise history. The other is of course Kirk Gibson’s game-winner hit off Oakland Athletics closer Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.
Scully’s hypothesized approach is similar to his call of Gibson’s home run can be recited by just about anyone in Los Angeles. After relaying the home run, “She is gone!”
Scully allowed the sound from the Dodger Stadium air to fill the broadcast for over one minute. “In a year that has been so improbable,” he then began, “the impossible has happened.”
Turner, who was a young child on Oct. 15, 1988, recalls Gibson’s home run as one of his earliest baseball memories. Former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, who’s an in-person witness to both key hits, called Gibson and Turner “money players” who share similarities.
