A Legendary Career That Speaks for Itself

A Chance to Listen In

Thanks to the Internet and the advent of satellite radio, Scully's daily artistry is now available nationwide. On MLB.com's "Gameday Audio" package (subscription required), listeners can tune in live over the Internet, and even go back and listen to archived broadcasts -- an endless trove of Scully.

Pick a date (let's say, April 10), move the media player's seek button until you find the top of the broadcast, and prepare to be delighted:

"Hi, everybody, and a very pleasant good afternoon to you wherever you may be." Scully always starts with that line.

Fast forward to a random spot:

"Dodgers leading 1-0," Scully says as he comes back from commercial break, which he obviously had spent gazing into the stands. "A little boy sitting in his dad's lap. Another youngster, maybe six years old with a glove. And another one, a restless two-and-a-half to three, a little tow-head. [Chuckle.] So you look around the stands and you see kids of all ages, sizes and shapes. And we're ready to go for another baseball afternoon, and pizza and other things go right along with it."

Additionally, XM Satellite Radio this season began carrying the home team's broadcast of every big league game, nationwide, meaning there are 81 opportunities per season to carve out your own little slice of baseball heaven.

"One of the things we hear from our listeners is how much they love being able to hear Vin Scully," said David Butler, director of corporate affairs for XM Radio. "Many of them are people who may have seen him on TV or who are baseball fans who have heard about the legend of Vin Scully but had never had the luxury to hear him call a game on the radio."

But listen early and listen soon. Although he insists he has no timetable for retirement, Scully has made concessions to age in recent years. His contract (always year-to-year, never long term) stipulates he is not required to travel east of Denver, and he only does three innings per night on radio -- always solo. Those three innings are simulcast on radio and TV, and beginning with the fourth, he is only on TV -- and it is a poor substitute, as even Scully admits.

"With radio -- and I've almost made this a cliche -- you come into the booth, and there's an empty canvas," Scully says, describing the difference between the media outlets. "And you get all your paint and brushes, and you mix your paints. And then you have a broad swath here and fine line there. And at the end of three hours, you say, 'Well, that's the best I can do today.' On television, you walk in and the picture's already there. So what you're doing is shading, subtle things."

In a typical three-hour baseball game, the ball is only in play for perhaps six minutes, and Scully is a master at interspersing biographical material and anecdotes about the batter or the pitcher between pitches -- information he keeps on notebook pages in front of him.

Here is what his page on Vincent Edward Scully might include: