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Author of 'Pull Up a Chair: The Vin Scully Story' to appear at Yogi Berra Museum
BY JERRY MILANI
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
When baseball fans think about the sport's greatest broadcasters, Vin Scully is one that likely comes to mind first. The Dodgers' play-by-play man since the club's days in Brooklyn, Scully is a member of numerous Halls of Fame, notably the broadcasters wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in New York and his alma mater, Fordham University's Hall of Fame.
Scully even has a New Jersey connection: There is a baseball field named for him in Bogota, where he lived with his mother while he worked Dodgers games in the 1950s.
Curt Smith, author or more than a dozen books and former speechwriter for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, has written Pull Up a Chair: The Vin Scully Story (Potomac Books, 264 pgs.), the new biography of the legendary voice and Bronx native.Smith will be discussing Scully's career and the book at the Yogi Berra Museum in Montclair on Sunday, June 28, at 4 p.m.
NewJerseyNewsroom.com recently spoke with Smith about Scully, broadcasting and the biography.
NJNR: Several of your books have been on the topic of baseball announcers. What prompted you to write a book about Vin Scully?CS: "Pull Up a Chair,'' – the first biography of Vin Scully – is my 13th book, sixth on baseball broadcasting. Several years ago I released a book on my friend Mel Allen. Completing it, I turned inevitably to the Roy Hobbs of play-by-play. Imagine studying popular music sans Sinatra; rock music, the Beatles; or the Presidency, Franklin Roosevelt. I hoped a Scully biography would fill that void. It shows the ''Voice of the Dodgers'' scaling a hill of syntax and vocabulary, a peak of place and mood.
NJNR: What new things about Scully will the reader learn from "Pull Up a Chair''? Is there something that they will find surprising or shocking about him?
CS: The reader will learn how Scully's history is post-World II's baseball history. He will find Scully a family man, grounded and self-aware. Above all, he will see Scully's subtlety, detail, telling fact, work ethic, and standing in the player's shoes: ad-lib art, day after day. At Dodger Stadium, Hemingway's "grace under pressure" lives.
NJNR: Baseball has a long tradition of its fans having a deep connection with its announcers. Do you think Scully is the last of the breed for whom this will be true?
CS: If a voice is good enough, lasts long enough, and bares familiarity, he becomes an extended family member. Ultimately, the listener knows him better than your proverbial Uncle Fred. Scully is the best, if hopefully not the last, of "the breed" – like Allen, Ernie Harwell, today's Jon Miller, connecting tissue between the public and its game. Someone will succeed Vin at Chavez Ravine. No one will replace him.
NJNR: Scully is the first of a long line of sports announcers to trace their beginnings to Fordham University and its 50,000-watt public radio station WFUV. How much did Scully's experiences there mold his career?
CS: Daily. WFUV offered the chance to craft and develop style. A classmate recalls Scully, "everywhere, recording himself, carrying this huge contraption, probably thirty pounds." Vin aired a Saturday night disc jockey show. "It was funny," he said. "We thought it was funny, anyway." Scully, a.k.a. The Phantom, played center field on the baseball team: good-field, little-hit, and fast. His Jesuit education tied discipline, toil, and scholarship. Fordham also affirmed his deep religious faith. In a 2000 commencement speech, Vin told graduates: "Don't let the winds blow your dreams away ... or steal you of your faith in God."
NJNR: What do you think makes Scully so endearing to baseball fans?
CS: Scully grasps language's nub: Storytelling. Jesus, Homer, and Maimonides loved anecdote. Lincoln taught through humor. FDR invented a piano teacher – simply made her up! – to illustrate a point. Baseball's last practitioner of "One Booth, One Announcer," still addresses the listener; not happy talk with a peer. He draws you toward him, making the complex simple: the surpassing personality of baseball on the air.
NJNR: Besides the fact he is the last to do the games by himself, what makes him different than other baseball announcers?
CS: Red Barber called the English language "the most beautiful thing, next to human love, I know." Scully plays it like Jascha Heifetz played a violin. "He catches the ball gingerly, like a baby chick falling from the tree." Relive a weak hit evoking Eugene O'Neill's "a humble thing, but thine own." Churchill said, "Words are bullets you use as ammunition." Scully uses them against temptation to turn the dial.
NJNR: In 2000, the American Sportscasters Association named Scully the Sportscaster of the 20th Century. Do you agree with that assessment?
CS: Yes. In fact, this year the ASA named Vin the "Top Sportscaster of All-Time," routing, among others, Allen, Curt Gowdy, and Jim McKay. My 2005 book, "Voices of Summer," ranked baseball's 101 top-ever voices on a 1-to-100 point scale. I gave Scully 100 points: the perfect announcer. Try topping the topper.
NJNR: So if you were charged with putting together a "Mount Rushmore" of baseball announcers, whom would you put on it?
CS: Scully is primus inter pares: first among equals. Allen's voice wed Billy Graham and James Earl Jones. Harwell, 91, is priceless, timeless. Barber was Vin's mentor; Harry Caray, Falstaffian; Bob Prince, maniacally riveting. Dean warrants Rushmore on "He's standing confidentially at the plate" alone. The real Mt. Rushmore includes Washington, Jefferson, TR, and Lincoln. There clearly are more great voices than U.S. Presidents!
NJNR: How did you go about gathering information for the book?
CS: I spoke with Vin for prior books like "Voices of The Game," "The Storytellers," and "What Baseball Means To Me." I worked with him on a 1993 Reader's Digest tribute to Barber. Before their death, I discussed Scully with Red, Allen, Caray, Prince, Jack Buck, Chuck Thompson, Lindsey Nelson, and long-time partner Jerry Doggett, among others. Harwell was especially helpful. I did 75 interviews, heard hundreds of broadcast hours, researched my two-decade archives, and visited, among other sites, Fordham, the Baseball Hall of Fame Library, and the Library of Congress.
NJNR: Are there any young announcers today that you have heard whom you think have been influenced by Scully's style?
CS: I think that most are. In 2003, Rochester Red Wings general manager Dan Mason got 200 tapes for a broadcast vacancy. "I got tired of hearing ‘em. Everyone was trying to be Scully." On one hand, they should learn from Vin; on the other, heed Barber's advice to his early-20s protégé: "Don't listen to other announcers," Red told Scully. "Be yourself. Forge your own style. Don't copy. You will water your own wine."
NJNR: What do you think of the state of baseball play-by-play and color commentary today?
CS: In September Song, "the days dwindle down to a precious few." Baseball's radio/TV artisans dwindle down each year. "When I started, we didn't have models," said Harwell. "Now guys are trained at radio school and college," sounding dull, programmed, and alike. Like Scully, most great voices began on radio. Many now start on TV, unable to chat around a fire. Some even prefer other sports, thinking baseball nothing special. The game's golden broadcast age is largely gone.
NJNR: You have what many would consider a unique background for a writer of sports books – you were a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. How did that experience shape the way you write about sports?
CS: A book, like speech, needs structure. I also like to bring the outside world to the written, like spoken, word. In addition, I remember Ronald Reagan saying, "If people hear 15 facts and one well-delivered story, they remember the story." Speechwriting taught that succinct is good; vivid better; and personal best of all. For me, "Pull Up a Chair" bridged baseball and politics. Reagan was once Scully's same-street neighbor in Pacific Palisades, often simultaneously arriving home: Reagan, from a speech; Vin, (from) Chavez Ravine. Seeing him, the Gipper beckoned: "How'd we [the Dodgers] do tonight?" Bush faced Scully in 1947 Yale-Fordham baseball. In a 1990s Scully video, the 41st President recalled that Yale won, 2-1, "and that if I remember correctly, we both went 0 for 3."
NJNR: You will be discussing Scully's career and "Pull Up a Chair" at the Yogi Berra Museum in Montclair on June 28. What are some things you plan to talk about?
CS: I will show how Vin's history is largely post-WW II's baseball history. I'll explore, as voice Hank Greenwald says, why football and basketball carry the announcer – and the announcer carries baseball. I'll note how Vin and Yogi are different, but fabled, linguists. Scully said of a giveaway at Dodger Stadium: "There's something redundant about giving noise-makers to youngsters under 14 years of age." Yogi said, "Always go to other people's funerals. Otherwise, they won't come to yours." In a sense, these sons of Irish and Italian immigrants, respectively, embody the American Dream.
NJNR: Thanks again for your time and we look forward to seeing you on the 28th.
CS: As Yogi said, "I'd like to thank everybody who made this day necessary." Thank you very much.