Presentation, 22d annual Baseball in Literature & Culture conference, Ottawa Kansas. March 31, 2017

1. 22d annual
Baseball in Literature and Culture conference -
March 31, 2017
Ottawa, KS

2. “Missing Vin”
celebrating the unrivaled coast-to-coast broadcast legacy
of Vin Scully, Brooklyn 1950 - Los Angeles 2016
Phil Oliver
phil.oliver@mtsu.edu
delightsprings.blogspot.com
Middle Tennessee State University

3. Alternate (if more enigmatic) title:
“Whoosh”: finding secular meaning
in the booth
(along with humility, gratitude, and classic
virtue, arete)

4. “Hi everybody and a very pleasant good afternoon to you, wherever you may be.”
officialvinscully.com

5. The 1950 Brooklyn Dodgers
Yearbook made mention of their
newest broadcaster with the
following excerpt: "Third and
youngest member of the Dodger
airlanes trio (with Red Barber &
Connie Desmond) is Vince Scully,
a 1949 Fordham University
graduate who in his closing college
days covered Ram football,
basketball and baseball games
over the school station after
lettering for two years as an
outfielder on the diamond. Vince is
23, single, makes his home in New
York." BA

6. Vin’s equanimity about endings,
and his reluctance to be the story
(and not the teller), echoes Barber’s
advice. The night Red died, in
October 1992, Vin went on the air
recalling his old mentor’s words. “I
could almost hear him telling me,
‘Vinny, don’t spend any time during
the game talking about me. The
people have not tuned in to hear
about me. You want to talk about
me, talk after and before the game.
But when you go into that booth
you do the game.’” The game went
on; life went on...

7. Vin Scully: Dodgers' announcer reflects on Hall of Fame career | SI.com
“I’m not a military general, a business guru, not a philosopher or author,” Scully told the graduates in the adjacent
Vincent Lombardi Fieldhouse. “It’s only me.”
Only me? Vin Scully is only the finest, most-listened-to baseball broadcaster that ever lived, and even that honorific
does not approach proper justice to the man. He ranks with Walter Cronkite among America’s most-trusted media
personalities, with Frank Sinatra and James Earl Jones among its most-iconic voices, and with Mark Twain, Garrison
Keillor and Ken Burns among its preeminent storytellers...
Tom Verducci

8. Baseball's poet laureate and painter
"Vin Scully has the most musical voice in baseball. He doesn't have the clipped, old-time-radio
cadence of most broadcasters who date back to the '50s and beyond. Although his timbre is thin,
everything is smooth and rounded. The words slide into each other. He has flow. The melody rises
and falls on the tide of the game. You can almost hum along to Vin Scully. He's often referred to as
baseball's poet laureate, and those who don't get him parody him by quoting Emerson or spouting
flowery language. But even though he will occasionally toss off some verse (he's likely to find the
lyrics of an old show tune more apt) or call a cheap base hit "a humble thing, but thine own," the
real metaphor for Vin Scully isn't poetry, or even music: It's painting...

9. Other radio announcers can tell you what's happening on the field, and you can imagine it. With Vin
Scully, you can see it. His command of the language and the game is so masterful that he always has just
the right words to describe what's going on. He paints you a picture." - Gary Kaufman in Salon (2000)

10. He was eventually the only living
constant in the game year after
year, for many of us, the charming
and elegant storyteller with the
bottomless memory. His retirement,
so long anticipated, is hard not to
regret. What an iconic, celebration-
worthy career! But it’s over. Can’t
we be sad about that, AND glad it
happenend? But getting the sad-
glad ratio right is always a
challenge.

11. Tyler Kepner: "The Farewell Tour Comes to Vin Scully", "Extra Bases", The New York Times, August 27, 2016.
Bryce Harper, who grew up in Las Vegas and listened to Scully’s broadcasts, met with him during the
Washington Nationals’ visit in June. Harper — who does a Scully imitation but calls it “terrible” —
proudly owns a copy of Scully’s broadcast of his major league debut in Los Angeles in 2012.
“He talked about my mom and dad on it, where I was from, said my dad was an ironworker from Vegas,
things like that,” Harper said. “But growing up, it wasn’t just about the game to him. It was about the
beauty of the game, the beauty of the fans, how much he could bring the fans together and the Dodgers
together, things like that. When you think of the Dodgers, you don’t just think about all the greats that
played for the Dodgers, you think of Vin Scully as well.”
...Scully, 88, is not only greeted by
umpires on the field. A procession of
players, managers, coaches and
umpires has made the trek — in
uniform — up the ballpark elevator
or escalators and into the Vin Scully
Press Box to say goodbye to the man
himself…

12. So, this is a paean to one of
baseball's elite chroniclers as well
as a meditation on finitude,
gratitude, and the continuity of life
that our best storytellers enshrine in
living memory. Vin was treated to a
summer of gratitude and
appreciation himself, as
representatives of team after team
made a point of meeting and
saluting the Dodger legend. Umps
and legends too. Even “J’ints” fans.
Even “J’ints”...

13. “One thing stands out - gratitude…” Jaime
Jarron
“Welcome to my Thanksgiving…”

14. He received the presidential medal
of freedom in December, a fitting
postscript to his final season. His
humble reply, when White House
press secretary Josh Earnest
phoned with the news: "Are you
sure? I'm just an old baseball
announcer." Humble indeed, for
someone who'd been enshrined in
Cooperstown for 35 years already!
Public acknowledgment of those
who ennoble us with their narrative
eloquence is itself a crucial chapter
in our story. The larger point of
"Missing Vin" is to underscore the
importance of telling our whole
story, and the stories of our best
storytellers, year after year, with
dignity and respect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=NPuIOY1TDhg
HoF class of ‘82 (Aaron,
F.Robinson)… Ford
Frick Award winners…
Spink Award winners

15. President Barack Obama on Vin Scully...

17. His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was placed there on June 9, 1982 — about the time he
was enshrined at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

18. Joe Buck on Vin
Vin Scully memories, quotes from
broadcasters | MLB.com
Scully ends career as he lived it, with class
Cut4: Scully's final sign-off
Scully's amazing career infographic
Lupica: Summers won't be the same anymore
Fellow broadcasters on mark Scully has left
Scully's 10 greatest calls
Ten best Vin Scully stories
Scully pens heartfelt letter to Dodgers fans
Enjoy Scully's fnniest calls
Vin Scully: Broadcasting Royalty

19. 10 of his most enthralling stories
● The time Jonny Gomes was almost eaten by a wolf
● The time Madison Bumgarner chopped up a snake and saved a rabbit
● The Beatles narrowly escape Dodger Stadium
● Vin Scully's Fun Flag Facts
● Yogi Berra made sure he protected himself during a brawl
● The plight of the endangered redheads
● The little-known tale of J.D. Salinger, D-Day hero
● A Dodgers fan and a Giants fan become a moral parable
● He thought Sandy Koufax was too tan
● The proliferation of beards in Major League Baseball
● Mike Matheny owes his college career to bird poop
More than any particular story, though, what was always so enthralling
about Vin was the way he crafted the interweaving and backgrounding of
larger (though not always more profound) human stories with the
immediate unfolding story of the “child’s game” he was describing.

20. “We’ll miss
you, Vin
Scully…”
“Fun fact, his
father was one
of those soccer
players who ate
his teammate
after a plane
crash in the
Andes…”

21. “29,000 people and a million butterflies”
Vin Scully's radio call of the ninth inning of Sandy Koufax's 1965 perfect
game against the Chicago Cubs is pure baseball literature.
Three times in his sensational career has
Sandy Koufax walked out to the mound to
pitch a fateful ninth where he turned in a
no-hitter. But tonight, September the 9th,
nineteen hundred and 65, he made the
toughest walk of his career, I’m sure,
because through eight innings he has
pitched a perfect game. He has struck out
11, he has retired 24 consecutive batters,
and the first man he will look at is catcher
Chris Krug, big right-hand hitter, flied to
second, grounded to short. Dick
Tracewski is now at second base and
Koufax ready and delivers: curveball for a
strike… (continues)

22. One and 1 to Harvey Kuenn. Now he’s
ready: fastball, high, ball 2. You can’t
blame a man for pushing just a little bit
now. Sandy backs off, mops his
forehead, runs his left index finger along
his forehead, dries it off on his left pants
leg. All the while Kuenn just waiting. Now
Sandy looks in. Into his windup and the 2-
1 pitch to Kuenn: swung on and missed,
strike 2!
It is 9:46 p.m.
Two and 2 to Harvey Kuenn, one strike
away. Sandy into his windup, here’s the
pitch:
Swung on and missed, a perfect game!
(38 seconds of cheering.)
On the scoreboard in right field it is 9:46 p.m. in the City of the Angels,
Los Angeles, California. And a crowd of 29,139 just sitting in to see the
only pitcher in baseball history to hurl four no-hit, no-run games. He
has done it four straight years, and now he caps it: On his fourth no-
hitter he made it a perfect game. And Sandy Koufax, whose name will
always remind you of strikeouts, did it with a flurry. He struck out the
last six consecutive batters. So when he wrote his name in capital
letters in the record books, that “K” stands out even more than the O-
U-F-A-X.

23. Koufax's 9/9/65 perfect game, final inning: Scully's call and its transcript

24. When asked why he goes solo, partner Charley Steiner said "Poets don't need straight
men." Scully himself says that broadcasting solo allows him to have a conversation
with the listener rather than a broadcasting partner, and this allows a rapport with the
listener that could not otherwise occur.

25. "All year long they looked to him (Kirk Gibson) to light the fire and all year long he answered the
demands. High fly ball into right field. She is gone! [pause] In a year that has been so improbable,
the impossible has happened."

26. "Andre Dawson has a bruised knee and is listed as
day-to-day (pause). Aren't we all?"
"He (Bob Gibson) pitches as
though he's double-parked."
"It's a mere moment in a man's life between the
All-Star Game and an old timer's game."

27. It’s not too surprising that Vin the
storyteller/poet, though always up to
speed on the numbers of the game, did
not think they told the most important
part of the story. "Statistics are used
much like a drunk uses a lamp post: for
support, not illumination."

28. Vin Scully's Last Time on the Air for
the Dodgers Is Another Solo Flight
…
Oct 3, 2016 - Vin Scully's final game on
Sunday was something close to a miracle in
sportscasting — an 88-year-old man
performing a solo act, conversing ...
Beyond Baseball, Vin Scully Leaves Behind
an Archive of Oddities …
This year, he recited the speech from “Field of Dreams”
for the Hall of Fame tour that made its first stop at the
film’s original cornfield location in Dyersville, Iowa.
Performing a cover version of James Earl Jones’s
orationenabled Scully to deliver words that may have
felt poignant to him and his fans as he approached his
final game:
“The memories will be so thick,” he said, “they’ll have to
brush them away from their faces.”

29. Vin’s last sign-off - "I have said enough for a lifetime, and for the last time, I wish you a very pleasant good afternoon." The
screen faded, and those words led into this essay Scully had prepared ahead of time: Scully then came back on air for an
encore after that essay to share these words and a final goodbye (watch here)

30. There will be a new day and eventually a new year, and when the upcoming winter gives way to Spring, oh-ho, rest assured,
once again it will be time for Dodger baseball.” October 2, 2016
“You and I have been friends for a long time… I’ll miss our time together more than I can say. But you know what? -

31. Vin’s Top 5 Calls

32. ...Hank Aaron’s 715th home run in 1974, during which he announced the homer and then remained
silent for one minute and 44 seconds while fans cheered and fireworks boomed. When he finally
spoke again, his words were poetry.
“What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of
Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing
ovation in the Deep South for breaking the record of an all-time baseball idol, and it is a great
moment for all of us,’’ he said.
Voice for the Ages

33. In Homer's world, lack of gratitude is one of the surest
signs that a character is Deficient. (72)
[Lou Gehrig] described his heartfelt gratitude for the
kindness and encouragement he had gotten from the
fans… (191)
All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a
Secular Age

34. ...I might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot
to live for.
“...perhaps the most powerful example of American rhetoric ever
produced outside the political sphere… For the moments that led up
to and were held together by Gehrig’s speech, 62,000 people knew
exactly what they were about…
Sports may be the place in contemporary life where Americans find
sacred community most easily.”

35. Dreyfus and Kelly continue: “The most important things, the most real things in
Homer’s world, well up and take us over, hold us for a while, and then, finally, let us
go. If we had to translate Homer’s word physis, then whooshing is about as close as
we can get. What there really is, for Homer, is whooshing up… These [are] the
shining moments of reality…”
They are the moments when delight springs up into our
lives, lights them up with particular and personal
significance, returns us to the meaning, the meanings, of
our lives. Those moments may feel unbidden, but they
have to be cultivated and appreciated. (I wish I could report
that William James was himself a baseball fan who
delighted and found deep meaning in the game, perhaps
even the moral equivalent of war. But, his student Morris
Raphael Cohen observed, “all great men have their
limitations.”)

36. “When something whooshes up it
focuses and organizes everything
around it. The great athlete in the midst
of play rises up and shines… And
everyone around him--the players on the
field, the coaches on the sidelines, the
fans in the stadium, the announcers in
the booth--everyone understands who
they are and what they are to do…”

37. The thing about Vin is, he
wasn’t just another random
“announcer” - he was one
of the whooshers. In
Dreyfus’ and Kelly’s terms
he was a master
practitioner of the art of
poiesis, a “sacred nurturing
practice” that “puts physis
[or whooshing] in its proper
place.”
Like Hephaestus, the craft and fire god,
Vin’s narrative craft “brought forth shining
things,” made our games mean something
more than we could see for ourselves,
helped us understand ourselves as more
than spectators and listeners but as active
participants in the cultivation of meaning.

38. Further - but we can save this for
next year, maybe - he filled the vital
meta-poietic function of holding us
at arms’ thoughtful length from the
mindless crowd, gently inducing us
to think about our place in the
panorama, to recognize “when to
rise up as one with the ecstatic
crowd and when to turn heel and
walk rapidly away.”
This is something other than Wm Carlos
Wms’ “crowd at the ballgame” that
delights in its mere uselessness,
something far more useful to a citizen of
what some of us still hope is not yet a
defunct democracy.

39. Point is: “One cannot expect every
moment of one’s existence to be a
sacred celebration of meaning and
worth,” but “there must be moments
when we rise up out of the generic and
banal and into the particular and skillfully
engaged.” Those are the celebratory
moments when routine rises to ritual,
when some of us celebrate ourselves
and our environment by tuning in,
wherever we may be, to a familiar
whooshing sound.
But as the late Douglas Adams
said, “I love deadlines. I love the
whooshing noise they make as
they go by.”
This year it won’t be the same.

40. ...I was assailed by memories, both good and bad.
Most were in a mode of gratitude— gratitude for
what I had been given by others, gratitude too that
I had been able to give something back.
Gratitude, by Oliver Sacks

41. Dr. Sacks may have spoken for Vin,
and for those of us who face with
some sadness and trepidation a first
season without our favorite bard. “I
cannot pretend I am without fear.
But my predominant feeling is one of
gratitude…
I have been a sentient being, a
thinking animal, on this beautiful
planet, and that in itself has been an
enormous privilege and adventure.”
But before you go...

42. Who first said that? Vin credited Dr.
Seuss, but one “”Quote
Investigator” says “Ludwig
Jacobowski should be credited with
coining this saying in German.
There is no substantive support for
assigning the statement to Dr.
Seuss.”
From now on, I say Vin said it.
Now I’m ready...