Scully Back For 65th Year as Dodgers Announcer

By City News Service

The Los Angeles Dodgers are expected to announce Friday that 85-year-old Vin Scully will return for a record 65th season in 2014.

"It has been such an exciting, enjoyable, wonderful season -- the big crowds in the ballpark, everybody is talking about the ballclub and I really respect, admire and love the management -- so everything just fell into place," Scully told the Los Angeles Times. "I really still enjoy it immensely. My health is good, thank God, so why not? And my wife said, 'Why not?' as well.

"Just the thought of walking away from it to retirement -- and looking out the window or something? It's just too good. As a baseball man and someone who has always loved the game, the situation and conditions are perfect."     The team is expected to announce today that Scully, who has been announcing the team's games since 1950, when it was based in Brooklyn, will return next season, a Dodgers source told City News Service.

Scully broadcasts the entire games alone, the first three innings on both television and radio and the remainder exclusively on television. He has reduced his workload to the team's games in California and Arizona.

His many honors include the Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually by the Baseball Hall of Fame to a broadcaster for "major contributions to baseball" and being named the greatest sportscaster by the American Sportscasters Association.

A ranking system devised by author Curt Smith for his 2005 book "Voices of the Game" determined that Scully was baseball's greatest announcer, giving him a perfect score of 100, based on such factors as longevity, language, popularity and persona.

Either on the team or NBC broadcasts, Scully has called such memorable moments by the Dodgers (or their opponents) as Kirk Gibson's pinch-hit home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, Sandy Koufax's perfect game in 1965, New York Yankee pitcher Don Larsen's perfect game against the Dodgers in the 1956 World Series and Hank Aaron's record- setting 715th home run.

"He is the Babe Ruth of our industry. Period. End of story," fellow Dodger announcer Charley Steiner said in 2012.

"He is to sportscasting what The Beatles were to music. You could argue who is the second greatest group of all time, you can argue who's the second greatest baseball broadcaster of all time, but case closed on The Beatles and Vin."   

TELL US IN THE COMMENTS: Can you imagine doing anything for 65 years? Who are your favorite announcers and why?