Pull Up a Chair: The Vin Scully Story
By Curt
Smith
(Potomac Books,
263 pages, $29.95)
It was a close thing recommending Pull Up a Chair to
TAS readers. I’m finally doing so because of the book’s
subject, not because of its execution (which, several times while
reading the book, I was in favor of). Vin Scully deserves a
better biography, and we can hope one day he’ll get one.
First, the most startling thing was to learn that Curt Smith’s
Pull Up a Chair is the first book written about Vin
Scully, who is, by nearly universal agreement, the best baseball
announcer to draw breath. And one of the most pleasing
storytellers in the history of the world. The luxurious pace of
baseball requires a storyteller to bring the game to full life,
and Scully is the best.
Few who’ve had the pleasure of listening to Scully draw a
word-picture of a baseball game on a summer night will argue with
this summation. He can be eloquent and elegant, poetic but
accessible, conversational but erudite. He has the sense of
timing and drama and humor to give listeners the full import of
the moment without yelling at them or hyping.
Scully’s is a soothing sound. He always talks directly to the
listener, not to a beefy guy wearing a tie in the booth with him
(at least partly because Scully usually works alone — he’s his
own color man — but even when he has someone with him he talks
to the person listening to the radio or TV). He’s the listener’s
mature and gentlemanly friend, sharing the accounts of a
ballgame, as well as the occasional musing on the nature of
things.
Almost invariably it’s, “Hi again, everybody, and a very pleasant
good evening to you, wherever you may be.” And then the magic
begins. And the magic is there whether the Dodgers are in first
place or in last, whether they’re prevailing that evening or
getting hammered.
Smith relates perhaps the most dramatic testimonial to how Scully
can make baseball into music. In the early nineties, Ray Charles
told Bob Costas that Scully was the man Charles would most like
to meet. Why Scully?
“You’ve got to remember that to me the picture doesn’t mean
anything,” said Charles, blind since age seven. “It’s all about
the sound.”
Costas arranged the meet at Dodger Stadium and the two got on
famously. “Vin was, of course, very gracious, and certainly had
an appreciation of who Ray Charles was,” Costas said. “Ray was
like a little kid taken to see Santa Claus. He was just beside
himself, clapping his hands, and throwing his head back.”
Two great stylists, enjoying each other’s company.
In one of his dopey movies, Woody Allen’s character says, “The
only cultural advantage to Los Angeles is that you can turn right
on red.” Wrong again, Woody. The only cultural advantage to LaLa
Land is Vin Scully on the summer airwaves. He’s one of the few
adults in the entire L.A. Basin, and perhaps the only one there
who’s consistently listened to. If Los Angeles has a heaven
(there are diverse opinions on this), Scully is its constant
star.
For a few seasons in the eighties and nineties Scully announced
baseball’s Saturday “Game of the Week” in addition to Dodger
games during the week. He’s done the World Series a few times.
He’s even taken a few turns doing NFL games and some golf
tournaments. But Scully is essentially a baseball man, and the
bulk of his long career has been as an announcer for the Dodgers,
beginning in Brooklyn, and for the team’s entire history in Los
Angeles. He took over as top Dodger banana after Red Barber and
the Dodgers parted company in a somewhat scratchy divorce in
1953. Scully was a talented 25 year-old with some game then, but
still with lots to learn. Now he’s an 81 year-old master, still
at the height of his considerable powers. (No job-hopper is our
Vin.)
Scully’s contributions to his sport, to his community, and to the
language (which he uses and treats with great respect) have not
gone unnoticed. He’s won every award for announcing there is to
win. When sportswriters or broadcasters rank play-by-play
announcers, Scully is always where he belongs, at the very top.
He was elected to the announcers’ branch of the Baseball Hall of
Fame in 1982. He’s been awarded at least one honorary doctorate
of humane letters (from Fordham — his alma mater). Small groups
of college students, from Fordham and Pepperdine, have been
fortunate enough to hear commencement speeches from Scully
instead of from the honored drudges, politicians, or show-biz
airheads who so often pull these assignments.
In Pull Up a Chair readers will learn the history I’ve
lightly brushed above, as well as about the Bronx youngster you
used to sit by the family radio listening to the crowd roaring at
sports events and who decided in grade school that he wanted to
be a sports announcer. Also about the good-field, not-much-hit
center-fielder for the Fordham baseball team who learned it was a
good thing he wanted to be an announcer because he wasn’t going
to make The Show as a player. There are also the tragedies in
Scully’s life, the death of his first wife, and later of a 33
year-old son.
Chair also outlines the developments as well as the
clashes and conflicts in baseball during Scully’s long career.
There were the franchise moves, including baseball’s Manifest
Destiny, the dramatic expansion of baseball to the West Coast.
There were strikes and rumors of strikes. Drugs and skyrocketing
player salaries. The marketing struggles between baseball and
other sports. There were the personalities, great and not so
great, on the field and in the booth. They’re all in
Chair.
Unfortunately, Smith gives us a wealth of good information in a
pedestrian writing style, clipped and choppy and occasionally
incoherent. He sometimes changes subject in the middle of a
paragraph. There are quotes where it’s hard to tell who is being
quoted. Smith often uses a quirky kind of shorthand, full of
words followed by colons, so that the book sometimes has the feel
of a Power Point presentation rather than a coherent, flowing
narrative. The reader has to work harder than he should have to
in order to get the sense of Smith’s presentation. Just the
opposite of listening to Scully.
Another weakness of the book is that it doesn’t include much
directly from Scully himself. Smith states in his introduction
that he talked to Scully for previous books. But there’s little
evidence in Chair that Smith spent much or any time with
Scully on this project. As a result the book is thin on Scully’s
thoughts on or feelings about the history Smith relates.
But the book has its strengths, including quotes from players,
sports writers, and other announcers about Scully and his
manifold skills and virtues. There are also a few direct
transcriptions of Scully’s calls, including two of his best: the
final inning of Sandy Koufax’s perfect game at Dodger Stadium in
1965, and Kirk Gibson’s dramatic, pinch-hit, walk-off home run to
win the first game of the 1988 World Series.
Here’s what Salon.com’s Gary Kaufman said after reading a
transcript of Scully’ call of Koufax’s perfect ninth:
It read like a short story. It had tension, rising and falling
drama, great turns of phrase. It was, and still is, the best
piece of baseball writing I’ve even seen. And it came off the
top of his head, at a moment, when, like the man whose feat he
was describing, he knew he had to be at the top of his game.
I’ve since heard a tape of that half-inning. There’s not a
single misstep.
There have been very few missteps in the almost 60-year career
(don’t adjust your computer — that’s correct — almost 60 years)
of Vincent Edward Scully. That’s probably why when fans or
writers have been polled over the years on who their favorite
Dodger is, the answer come up not Koufax, or Snider, or Wills, or
Drysdale, or (heaven forefend) Ramirez. The answer almost always
is Scully. That’s the kind of bond Scully has created with his
millions of listeners over more than half a century. (And the
gentlemanly Scully, it’s universally reported, is always polite
and accommodating to his many fans who approach him in public for
autographs, to be photographed with him, or to just share a
moment with him.)
For those not familiar with Scully’s work, who might wonder if
anyone could possibly be as good as everyone says Scully is, I
invite you to visit You Tube and listen to the Red Head in
action. Googling Vin Scully turns up other audio, including the
call of Koufax’s perfect ninth. You listen. You decide.
Keep on talking, Red Head. It will be a long time before we’re
ready to quit listening.
