Vin Scully will again announce Los Angeles Dodgers games in the 2015 season, which will be his unprecedented 66th season with the team, it was announced tonight.
The announcement was made by a trio of Dodger players on Dodger Stadium’s Dodger Vision board before the start of the bottom of the second inning of the game against the Atlanta Braves.
Pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu spoke first in Korean, followed by outfielder Yasiel Puig in Spanish and finally infielder Justin Turner in English, drawing huge cheers from the crowd.
“It is very difficult to say goodbye,” the 86-year-old Scully said in a statement released by the team. “God willing I will be back next year.
“Over the years I have been blessed to have so many friends including those that sit in the stands and listen as well as those at home, who listen and watch. It is just too hard to say goodbye to all these friends. Naturally there will come a time, when I will have to say goodbye, but I’ve soul-searched and this is not the time.”
The announcement coincided with a giveaway of microphones to fans to mark Scully’s 65th year with the franchise.
The announcement that Scully would be returning came earlier than each of the last four seasons, when the announcement came between Aug. 22 and Aug. 26 in each of those years.
Scully has been announcing the team’s games since 1950, when it was based in Brooklyn. In 2015, he will call all nine innings of the team’s television broadcasts on the Time Warner Cable’s SportsNet LA, with the first three innings of each of his games simulcast on the radio.
“I’m obviously not alone in saying that I’m overjoyed Vin will be coming back to the booth in 2015,” Dodger President and CEO Stan Kasten said. “Our fans deserve the very best and Vin’s voice, knowledge, experience and passion for broadcasting Dodger baseball are second to none.”
Scully’s 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.
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.
