Shortly after Scully died on August 2, 2022, at the age of 94, Sports Illustrated writer Tom Verducci used the Latin phrase eloquentia perfecta, or perfect eloquence, to describe Scully’s gift and well-honed craft. “Freshmen at Fordham, including Vin Scully, class of 1949, take a seminar class taught by the most accomplished faculty called eloquentia perfecta,” Verducci wrote. “It emerged from the rhetorical studies of the ancient Greeks, codified in Jesuit tradition in 1599. It refers to the ideal orator: a good person speaking well for the common good. It is based on humility: The speaker begins with the needs of the audience, not a personal agenda. Vin Scully was that ideal orator. A modern Socrates, only more revered.

“He was an amazing firsthand witness and chronicler of history. … And yet never did Vin place himself above the people and events he was there to chronicle.”

In a career spanning seven decades, Scully described some of the most memorable moments in baseball. He was erudite and eloquent, with exquisite timing and an ability to frame the drama as it unfolded. He could weave anecdotes about the players, literature, and history into the flow of the game, interrupting himself to describe a pitch without losing the thread of his tale or his listeners’ attention. But he also knew when to go silent and let the magical moment—and the roar of the crowd— speak for itself.

He received numerous awards throughout his career, including induction into the broadcasters’ wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982, an Emmy Award for lifetime achievement in 1996, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2016. “The game of baseball has a handful of signature sounds,” Obama said at the White House ceremony. “You hear the crack of the bat, you got the crowd singing in the seventh-inning stretch, and you’ve got the voice of Vin Scully.”

The Early Years

Scully was born in the Bronx after his parents immigrated from Ireland. He grew up in Washington Heights and attended Fordham Preparatory School. After graduating in 1944, he served briefly in the Navy before enrolling in Fordham College at Rose Hill, where he majored in communications. In 1947, he became one of the original voices of WFUV, the University’s radio station. He penned a sports column in The Fordham Ram, worked as a stringer for The New York Times, and sang in the Shaving Mugs, a campus barbershop quartet. For two seasons, he played outfield for the Fordham baseball team.

Five decades later, on May 20, 2000, Scully returned to Rose Hill to receive an honorary degree from the University and deliver the commencement address. He told graduates that the “four-letter words” he associated with Fordham were “home, love, and hope.” And he didn’t put himself above his audience: “It’s only me,” he said, “and I am one of you. … I walked the halls you walked. I sat in the same classrooms. I took the same notes and sweated out the final exams; drank coffee in the caf and played sports on your grassy fields.”

But Scully’s favorite place to be was behind the mic. He called Fordham baseball, basketball, and football games for WFUV. And in a 2020 documentary on the station’s celebrated sports department, he joked that he would even call games to himself while playing for the Rams. He recalled listening to games as a kid and being “so thrilled by the roar of the crowd that first, I loved the roar. Then I wanted to be there, and eventually I thought I would love to be the announcer doing the game.”

The Voice of the Dodgers

After graduating from Fordham in 1949, Scully spent the summer at a CBS radio affiliate in Washington, D.C., before he returned to New York to speak with the network about working there. Just a few days later, he received a call from Red Barber, the legendary CBS sports director and broadcaster, asking him to cover a college football game that Saturday. By spring, the 22-year-old Scully had joined Barber in the Brooklyn Dodgers broadcast booth. When Barber left to work for the Yankees following the 1953 season, Scully became the team’s primary announcer, a position he held when the franchise moved to Los Angeles for the 1958 season and kept until he retired in 2016.

The highlights of his career are too numerous to recount in full, but in 1955, he called the final out of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ only World Series victory. He described Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series, calling it “the greatest game ever pitched.”

He was behind the mic for another perfect game a decade later, by the Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax on September 9, 1965. That game was not televised, but Scully’s descriptive, evocative call of the last inning helped listeners see and feel the drama. “And you can almost taste the pressure now,” he said after the second strike against the inning’s leadoff hitter, Chris Krug. “Koufax lifted his cap, ran his fingers through his black hair, then pulled the cap back down, fussing at the bill. Krug must feel it too as he backs out, heaves a sigh, took off his helmet, put it back on, and steps back up to the plate.” Moments later, Scully said, “And there are 29,000 people in the ballpark and a million butterflies.”

On April 8, 1974, the Dodgers traveled to Atlanta to play the Braves, whose veteran slugger, Hank Aaron, was one home run away from breaking Babe Ruth’s record of 714 career home runs. In the fourth inning, Aaron stepped up to the plate with Scully behind the mic to describe a drama that would resonate far beyond the ballpark. “It’s a high drive into deep left-center field. Buckner goes back to the fence. It is gone!” Scully said, then let the crowd take the mic for 26 jubilant seconds before remarking on Aaron’s historic achievement: “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 a record of an all-time baseball idol.”

A dozen years later, Bill Buckner, the outfielder who watched Aaron’s recordbreaking home run sail just out of reach, would be at the infamous heart of another one of Scully’s most memorable calls. Now playing first base for the Boston Red Sox, Buckner and his teammates faced the New York Mets in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. They were up two runs and only one out away from breaking the so-called Curse of the Bambino, having not won a World Series since trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees after the 1919 season. But the Mets staged a gritty comeback to tie the game in the 10th inning. Finally, the Mets’ Mookie Wilson hit a seemingly simple ground ball Buckner’s way. “Little roller up along first, behind the bag, it gets through Buckner!” Scully said, his voice rising. “Here comes Knight, and the Mets win it!” Once again, he let the crowd roar—this time for nearly two minutes, as viewers were shown the replay of Buckner’s error, a delirious New York crowd, the jubilant Mets, and the despondent Red Sox. “If one picture is worth a thousand words,” Scully said when he returned to the mic, “you have seen about a million.”

The ‘Patron Saint of WFUV Sports’

Scully’s iconic style made him an inspiration for generations of sports broadcasters who followed in his footsteps at WFUV and at Fordham, including Michael Kay, FCRH ’82, the voice of the Yankees for the YES Network, who called Scully “the greatest broadcaster who ever lived.”

“Every game was a master’s class as he turned an inning into poetry. And as great as he was, he was just as nice. Class, elegance, and grace were all part of his humble but regal being,” Kay wrote. “His loss is heartbreaking as his golden voice is silenced, but he will live forever as an example of what to try and be on and off mic. RIP Mr. Scully, and rest easy knowing how much you made a difference to all who met you and had the joy of listening to you.”

In the 2020 documentary on WFUV sports, Hall of Fame basketball broadcaster Mike Breen, FCRH ’83, described what made Scully the best: “His vocabulary, his storytelling, his personality—everything. He just was perfect,” Breen said. “It made you … [want] to make sure you were always prepared anytime you went on the air.”

Bob Ahrens, WFUV’s sports director for 20 years before his retirement in 2017, said Scully always made time for the students. They usually interviewed him about once a year for the weekly One on One call-in show, and Ahrens said Scully hosted at least two workshops over the phone. “They can’t see him in person, and the control room is packed,” Ahrens said. “He loved FUV, he loved Fordham, and he was always willing to help out.”

In 2008, he became the first recipient of WFUV’s Vin Scully Award for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting, a lifetime achievement award that Breen accepted last fall and Kay took home in 2018. “To be given an award with Vin Scully’s name on it is beyond anything I could have ever imagined,” Kay said at the awards ceremony. “He is the patron saint of WFUV sports, he is the patron saint of anybody who does baseball play-by-play. He is the best at what he’s done.”

Mike Watts, GABELLI ’14, who calls games for ESPN, Westwood One, and other networks, said that Scully inspired him to come to Fordham. “There is no WFUV sports without Vin Scully,” Watts said. “His name gave all of us credibility. To have the greatest at anything come from your school, your radio station, your program—it’s the light that all of us were following.”

‘Smile Because It Happened’

On October 2, 2016, Scully called his final game. Before heading to the playoffs, the Dodgers and the Giants—two teams with New York roots—concluded the regular season with a game in San Francisco. In the final inning, Scully said that he’d had a line in his head all year, a common, anonymous expression often mistakenly attributed to Dr. Seuss, he said. “The line is, ‘Don’t be sad that it’s over. Smile because it happened.’ And that’s really the way I feel about this remarkable opportunity I was given, and I was allowed to keep for all these years. … I have said enough for a lifetime, and for the last time, I wish you all a very pleasant good afternoon.”

—Kelly Prinz, FCRH ’15, is an associate editor of this magazine. Chris Gosier and Ryan Stellabotte contributed to this article.

Fordham graduate Mike Breen, FCRH ’83, the lead voice for the NBA on ESPN and ABC, and the voice of the New York Knicks on MSG Networks, received the Vin Scully Award for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting. And Norah O’Donnell, anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News, was honored with the Charles Osgood Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism.

Fordham’s public media station, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this fall, also paid special tribute to two people: the late Vin Scully, FCRH ’49, longtime voice of the Dodgers, who helped define the station in its early years; and former news director George Bodarky, FCRH ’93, who helped shape the careers of hundreds of young journalists during his 20-plus years at the station.

In the ‘Same Breath as Vin Scully’

Michael Kay, FCRH ’82, voice of the New York Yankees for the YES Network, presented Breen with the Scully Award. He recalled sitting in the Rose Hill campus center cafeteria in the 1980s, eating french fries and talking with a fellow Fordham undergraduate about their post-college aspirations.

“There was a young man from Yonkers sitting there in a hideous reindeer sweater, and across from him was a young man from the Bronx, sitting there in a snorkel coat,” Kay said to laughter. “And we sat and talked about our dreams. And the kid in the reindeer sweater, who’s Mike Breen, said, ‘You know what, I really want to be the voice of the Knicks.’ And I sat there, and I said, ‘You know what, I really want to be the voice of the Yankees.’ … But since Mike is Tommy Topper, he didn’t just become the voice of the Knicks, he became the voice of the NBA.”

Kay saluted Breen for his remarkable career, which began at WFUV and includes calling 17 NBA Finals, the most of any broadcaster. He said Breen’s achievements and his character are why he “deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Vin Scully,” the award’s namesake, who always “carried himself with elegance and grace and class.”

“You could go to anybody, in any part of this industry—there is not one person, not one person that has anything bad to say about Mike Breen. So he and Vin Scully go together,” said Kay, a 2018 recipient of the Scully Award. “He’s that sort of guy. He just treats people the way he’d want his children to be treated. And that’s special in this industry.”

Breen, who became only the second Fordham graduate to receive the award, said it was a high honor because Scully was “the gold standard.”

“When you’re an aspiring broadcaster, you dream about a lot of things, but you never imagine receiving an award named after Vin Scully,” he said.

Breen said that as an undergraduate at WFUV, he did a little bit of everything at the station and learned the value of hard work. In addition to covering sports, he served as a late-night and overnight music disc jockey, which he said gave him “one of the most memorable nights of my entire life.” Breen was on the air Monday night, Dec. 8, 1980, when news broke that John Lennon had been shot and killed in Manhattan.

“I was told by one of the seniors, ‘Take phone calls, take requests, and just play Beatles music all night,’” Breen said. “And the phones rang off the hook, and they were talking about what John Lennon meant to them. One gentleman told me how he was about to commit suicide, but John Lennon’s song stopped him. Another told me he had a drinking problem, and John Lennon helped them through that. And it was the first time in my life I realized what music meant to people.”

Breen said the experience, and his background in news, made him a more versatile broadcaster, which helped him throughout his career. He also said that he wouldn’t be receiving the award without the support of so many people, including Kay, with whom he has had “43 years of the best friendship a man could have”; his MSG broadcasting partner, Knicks legend Walt “Clyde” Frazier, who attended the dinner; and his wife, Rosanne.

“When you’re an announcer as long as I’ve been, you’re fortunate to have so many great partners,” he said. “I always believed announcers should never publicly say who their favorite partner is, but I’m going to break that rule tonight. And Clyde, unfortunately, you’re number two. You see, the best part about tonight is I get to share it with my favorite partner: my wife, Rosanne.”

Breen said those relationships and others have helped him and his family get through a particularly hard time recently after his house was destroyed in a fire. The Vin Scully award is the latest for Breen, who also has been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a recipient of the Curt Gowdy Media Award.

‘A Fierce Journalist’

CBS News senior national correspondent Anthony Mason, who served as emcee for the evening, described his colleague Norah O’Donnell as a “fierce journalist” when presenting her with the Charles Osgood Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism. The award is named in honor of the 1954 Fordham graduate and WFUV alumnus who for many decades was the host of CBS Sunday Morning.

“We, her colleagues who sit next to her, have come to recognize a certain look Norah gets in her eyes when a senator or some such official is dodging or ducking or weaving or whatever,” he said. “And this steely veneer comes across Norah’s face. That’s when the question comes out that hits right between the eyes.”

O’Donnell wasn’t able to attend the dinner, but she sent video remarks that were played at the event. “I am so humbled and honored to receive this year’s Charles Osgood Award,” she said, “and thank you to Fordham University, where my mom went, and WFUV for your commitment to journalism,” which she said is more than “just a calling.”

“At its best, it has the power to make real change in the world that we live in, to give voice to those who feel like they have been silenced,” she said. “It is a privilege to do what we do.”

Mason said he was honored to participate in the event.

“I am what they said in radio, a ‘first-time, longtime’—I’m a first-time host [of On the Record] and I’m a longtime FUV listener and fan,” he said. “I became a fan somewhere around 25 years ago, when I moved out to the suburbs so we could raise our kids, and literally my car and my 45-minute commute and WFUV were my sanctuary from my crazy job.”

Honoring the ‘Patron Saint of WFUV Sports’ and an Influential Mentor

This year’s On the Record also featured two special tributes to broadcasters who helped shape the station and carry on its legacy—Scully and George Bodarky.

Scully, who died in August at the age of 94, was remembered through a video tribute produced by the WFUV sports department.

“Vin Scully is our patron saint. We revere Vin Scully. The ground he walks on is just golden,” Kay said at the dinner. “And we miss him … but his memory lives on, and one of the great things about Vin Scully is that his talent, which is exceptional, probably is only surpassed by the person that he was.”

Veteran sportscaster Bob Costas, who received the Vin Scully Award in 2013, took part in a panel discussion at the dinner. He said that one of the best things about being honored by WFUV was finding out about it from Scully himself.

“Everyone who won, they found out from Vin Scully—no one at Fordham told the winner until Vin had called them, and you heard that unmistakable voice, and he concluded his very gracious and warm comments always, ‘So Bob, welcome to the club,’” Costas said. “And joining any club of which Vin Scully is the charter member is a very good thing.”

Bodarky, the community partnerships and training editor at WNYC, was honored for his more than 20 years of service to WFUV, during which time he helped shape the careers of hundreds of young journalists, including NPR White House correspondent Scott Detrow, FCRH ’07, who presented him with the award.

“The thing about George is that dozens, maybe hundreds of people could be giving these remarks right now, telling you how George changed their life, how George taught them about broadcasting, how George opened the door to what became their career and their vocation,” he said.

Detrow said one lesson from Bodarky that has always stuck with him is that it is a privilege to tell people’s stories.

“He was talking to a student reporter one day, and he said, ‘What kind of interviews do you want to do?’ And the … student said, ‘I want to interview important people, I want to interview famous people,’” Detrow said. “And George said, ‘Those are actually the most boring interviews to do. They don’t want to tell you that much. What you want to do is interview people who have compelling stories—bring their stories to life, tell people about them.’ And I never forgot that.”

Bodarky said the honor wasn’t just for him but for all the journalists who came through the station. He asked those who had worked with him during their time at WFUV to stand up and be recognized.

“You are my success,” he told them. “You are the reason that I’m standing here tonight.”

Bodarky credited his mentors, including WFUV station manager Chuck Singleton, for helping him get his start in journalism as a Fordham undergraduate after he thought he wanted to pursue a law degree.

“This honor is also shared with my mom,” he said, “a single mother who raised two boys on her own, who always taught me to fly high and believe in myself, who I think without knowing it, taught me the importance of working hard, caring for others, and picking yourself up and dusting yourself off when times get tough.”

Bodarky said he’s grateful for the role he’s been able to play in so many journalists’ careers.

“When someone tells me that I played a role in their journalistic achievements, that they hear me in their head, guiding them when they’re on the air, writing a script, or doing an interview—that makes me feel present when I’m not present and that gives me the feeling of success,” he said.

The Next Generation

WFUV also recognized two young journalists, both of whom graduated from Fordham last May. Abigail Delk, FCRH ’22, received the WFUV Award for Excellence in News Journalism, and Alexander Wolz, FCRH ’22, received the Bob Ahrens Award for Excellence in Sports Journalism.

Singleton said that Delk not only produced award-winning feature stories for Cityscape, the station’s weekly public affairs show, but also “effortlessly managed her peers as editor.” Wolz was recognized for helping to turn all of the station’s sports “shows into digital, streamed programming, most notably New York’s longest-running sports call-in show, One on One.”

Breen said that Wolz and Delk are examples of students who are not just carrying on but enhancing WFUV’s legacy.

“Every Fordham student who decides to join this amazing radio station feels a responsibility to uphold the standards that all the previous students and student broadcasters have set—I felt it, I know Michael felt it,” Breen said, referring to Kay. “And I’ll say this to you two, and your fellow current students and broadcasters who are here tonight, you’ve not only upheld the standards, you’ve raised them. And I say bravo.”

Singleton said that this year’s dinner raised more than $137,000, bringing the total raised since WFUV launched the On the Record program to more than $1.1 million. That funding supports the station’s student training program, which this year includes more than 130 students.

More than 1,300 people joined the Fordham University Alumni Association at Yankee Stadium to watch the Twins squeak out a 4-3 victory over the Bronx Bombers on a night that began with a pregame reception for alumni at Yankee Tavern on 161st Street, continued with the distribution of special-edition, Fordham-branded Yankees jerseys inside the gate, and featured no shortage of Rams apparel and block Fs mixed in with the pinstripes and famous interlocking “NY” logo of the Yankees.

Some in the Fordham contingent were seated in right field, just below the Yankee Stadium “Judge’s Chambers” section and a baseball’s toss away from the super-slugging Aaron Judge himself. Among them was the University’s new president, Tania Tetlow, who attended with her husband and daughter and paid a pre-game visit to the press level, where she met with broadcasters Michael Kay FCRH ’82, and Justin Shackil, FCRH ’09, as well as Greg Colello, FCRH ’07, senior director of scoreboard and video production at Yankee Stadium.

“It’s clear that Fordham loyalty runs deep,” said Tetlow on the strong turnout from Fordham grads. “It’s so exciting to know how much Fordham alumni want to come together and to be at the other heart of the Bronx, Yankee Stadium.”

‘So Much Fordham Spirit Up in the Bronx’

It wasn’t Tetlow’s first game in the Bronx: She said her family had taken one in earlier in the summer, when they first arrived in New York. “We got our requisite gear and hats and started training our daughter, Lucy, on the joy of baseball,” she said. The family’s allegiances had been up for grabs because their former home, New Orleans, doesn’t have a big-league team. But Tetlow said their rooting interests are settled now: “We are fully committed to the Yankees.”

Fordham trustee Kim Bepler said she was excited that large groups could once again gather for “fantastic” events like this. “People want to be with people, and what’s better than going to Yankee Stadium?” she said. “And part of the joy of this is also accompanying our new president. So I get to see her cheer on the Yankees with her family.”

Samara Finn Holland, FCLC ’03, a member of the Fordham University Alumni Association Advisory Board, also praised the outing’s large turnout.

“I think it’s amazing,” she said. “It’s so great to see so much maroon and so much Fordham spirit up in the Bronx. And I think it’s really important as Fordham continues to unify all of its schools to have an event like this, where you have alumni from all the undergraduate colleges, as well as the graduate schools, all be able to come together and then celebrate.”

A Ram on the Mound, Camaraderie in the Stands

The Fordham grads in attendance got to see one of their own on the field: Greg Weissert, GABELLI ’18, who made his big-league debut on August 25, becoming the first Fordham grad to play for the Yankees since Johnny Murphy in 1946.

Weissert’s appearance in the Fordham Night game marked the seventh outing of his rookie season, in which he’s shown off deceptive sinkers and sliders, as well as a wicked two-seam fastball. A day after picking up a win with an efficient three-pitch outing to improve his record in relief to 3-0, Weissert entered in the eighth, giving up a home run that would prove to be the difference in the game.

But while the outcome of the game wasn’t what the Yankees fans in the Fordham group were hoping for, the night was about more than the result on the scoreboard.

Steve O’Dowd FCRH ’78, said he and his wife had been planning to come up to the New York area from the Jersey Shore for a wedding the weekend after the game. But when they heard about the alumni outing, they extended their trip (and added a pre-game detour to Arthur Avenue).

“I actually became a Yankees fan starting around the time I went to Fordham,” said O’Dowd. “Prior to that, I was a Mets fan, believe it or not. We’d cut classes and come to a lot of games. Thurman Munson was my hero; that’s why I have this number [15] on my jersey.”

Debbie Myllek, FCRH ’90, another former Mets fan who switched sides upon arriving at Fordham, said her family jumped at the opportunity to bring two generations of alumni to the event.

“We’re Yankee fans and massive Fordham fans,” she said. “My husband and I met at Fordham; I was a sportswriter on The Ram and he was my editor. Now both of our kids go to Fordham. For our friend group, we try to make sure we all sit in the same section, and now my son and his friend started doing the same. It’s really nice.”

—Joe DeLessio, FCLC ’06

“Vin Scully’s death marks the end of an era,” said Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham. “As members of the Fordham family, we grieve the loss of a wise and decent man who always spoke to our better natures—on the field and off. I know the University and WFUV communities join me in keeping Vin’s loved ones in our hearts and prayers today.”

Sometimes called the “Velvet Voice,” the iconic broadcaster was known for his elegant and evocative yet plainspoken approach to broadcasting. Listeners felt like they were joining a friend each broadcast as Scully welcomed them in with his usual greeting: “Hi everybody, and a very pleasant good evening to you, wherever you may be.”

“We have lost an icon,” Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten said in a statement. “The Dodgers’ Vin Scully was one of the greatest voices in all of sports. He was a giant of a man, not only as a broadcaster, but as a humanitarian. He loved people. He loved life. He loved baseball and the Dodgers. And he loved his family. His voice will always be heard and etched in all of our minds forever.”

Michael Kay, FCRH ’82, voice of the Yankees for YES Network, wrote in a statement that we “lost the greatest broadcaster who ever lived.”

“Every game was a master’s class as he turned an inning into poetry. And as great as he was, he was just as nice. Class, elegance and grace were all part of his humble but regal being,” Kay wrote. “His loss is heartbreaking as his golden voice is silenced, but he will live forever as an example of what to try and be on and off mic. RIP Mr. Scully and rest easy knowing how much you made a difference to all who met you and had the joy of listening to you.”

In a career spanning seven decades, Scully voiced some of the most historic calls in the game, including Don Larsen’s and Sandy Koufax’s perfect games in 1956 and 1965, respectively; Hank Aaron’s 715th career home run to break the record set by Babe Ruth; and Kirk Gibson’s walk-off home run in the 1988 World Series.

He received numerous awards throughout his career including an induction into the broadcasters’ wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982 and a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2016.

“The game of baseball has a handful of signature sounds,” President Obama said at the White House ceremony in 2016. “You hear the crack of the bat, you got the crowd singing in the seventh-inning stretch, and you’ve got the voice of Vin Scully.”

Scully’s career began at Fordham’s Rose Hill campus. He graduated in 1949 and is known as the “patron saint” of WFUV Sports, getting his start at the radio station as a student at Fordham College at Rose Hill. His work has inspired generations of students to become sports broadcasters.

He received an honorary doctorate from Fordham in 2000 after giving the commencement address and a lifetime achievement award from WFUV that is now named in his honor. Scully was inducted into the University’s Hall of Honor in 2011.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president emeritus of Fordham, called Scully one of Fordham’s “greatest heroes” as he awarded Scully with the Ram of the Year award in 2014.

“From the heart, I want you to know you are for Fordham an example of a man for others, a man whose life has been a life of integrity, of service, of great devotion to the University,” Father McShane said at the ceremony. “You could not be a better ambassador for us. Everyone at Fordham loves you as much as we revere you.”

Bob Ahrens, who worked as the WFUV Sports director for 20 years before his retirement in 2017, worked with Scully for years through the station.

“He loved Fordham, he loved FUV,” Ahrens said. “He was a Fordham guy through and through. He had a love for the school. He always wanted to know how the teams were doing.”

The Early Years

Scully was born in the Bronx after his parents immigrated from Ireland. He grew up in Washington Heights before he attended Fordham Preparatory School. He graduated in 1944 and served briefly in the Navy before returning to Rose Hill to study communications.

At Fordham, Scully had a sports column in The Fordham Ram student newspaper, worked as a stringer for The New York Times, and sang in the Shaving Mugs, a campus barbershop quartet. He also briefly played outfield for the Fordham baseball team.

When he gave the commencement address at Fordham in 2000, Scully told the graduates that the words he associated with Fordham were “home, love, and hope.”

“Home, because I spent eight years here on this campus, and it really was my second home. Love, because I loved every minute of it, and some of my closest and dearest friends in all the world were my classmates and teammates. And hope, hope came from a five-letter word called a dream,” he told the students.

Scully told the graduates that “I am one of you.”

“I walked the halls you walked. I sat in the same classrooms,” he told the graduates. “I took the same notes and sweated out the final exams; drank coffee in the café and played sports on your grassy fields.”

But Scully’s favorite place to be was behind the microphone. He called Fordham baseball, basketball, and football games for WFUV, 90.7 FM, which launched in 1947. In a 2020 documentary for WFUV Sports, Scully joked that he would call games to himself while playing in the outfield.

“I used to be so thrilled by the roar of the crowd that first, I loved the roar. Then I wanted to be there, and eventually I thought I would love to be the announcer doing the game,” he said in the documentary.

When Scully received the Ram of the Year award in 2014, he recalled sitting in the Fordham Prep auditorium next to his classmate Larry Miggins.

“We were talking about what we hoped to do when we finished school,” Scully said after accepting the award. “Larry said, ‘I’d love to be a major league ballplayer,’ and I said, ‘I’d love to be a major league broadcaster.’ And we both kind of chuckled.”

Scully recalled how a few years later, on May 13, 1952, he was behind the mic in the broadcast booth at Ebbets Field when Miggins came to bat for the Cardinals.

“It was so hard to speak. The Dodgers had a left-handed pitcher named Preacher Roe from Ash Flat, Arkansas. Preacher Roe was going to face my buddy Larry Miggins, and I’m going to describe whatever happens,” Scully said. “And Larry Miggins hit a home run.”

The Voice of the Dodgers

After graduating from Fordham, Scully spent the summer working at a CBS radio affiliate in Washington, D.C., before he returned to New York to speak with the network about working there. Just a few days later, he received a call from Red Barber, the legendary CBS sports director and broadcaster, asking him to cover a college football game that Saturday.

In less than a year, Scully joined Barber on what were then the Brooklyn Dodgers’ broadcasts. When Barber left to work for the Yankees following the 1953 season, Scully became the Dodgers’ primary announcer, a position he held until he retired in 2016.

During his long career, Scully recorded some of the most memorable calls in baseball history. He had been in the Dodgers job for less than five years when Don Larsen took the mound in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series and pitched a perfect game, the only one in a World Series.

“Got him! The greatest game ever pitched in baseball history by Don Larsen, a no-hitter, a perfect game in a World Series. Never in the history of the game has it ever happened in a World Series,” Scully said on the broadcast.

Less than 10 years later, Scully would be behind the mic for another perfect game, this time with Sandy Koufax on the mound. Scully’s call of the last inning featured his descriptive, evocative style.

“And there are 29,000 people in the ballpark, and a million butterflies,” he said, after the first batter.

As Koufax was one out away from a perfect game, Scully said, “I would think that the mound at Dodger Stadium right now is the loneliest place in the world.”

In 1974, the Dodgers traveled to Atlanta and faced Hank Aaron, who was one home run away from breaking Babe Ruth’s record of 714 career home runs. In the fourth inning, Aaron stepped up to the plate and made history, with Scully behind the mic.

“It’s a high drive into deep left center field, Buckner goes back to the fence, it is gone!” Scully called before letting the crowd take the mic for almost 30 seconds of celebration.

He then remarked on the historic achievement: “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 a record of an all-time baseball idol and it is a great moment for all of us.”

Bill Buckner, who almost caught that home run, would be at the heart of another famous—or infamous—Scully call.

Now playing first base for the Red Sox, Buckner and his team were attempting to break the famous “Curse of the Bambino,” having not won a World Series since trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees after the 1919 season. In 1986, the Red Sox faced the New York Mets in the World Series, and in Game 6, the Mets’ Mookie Wilson hit what looked to be a simple ground ball down the first base line.

“Little roller up along first, behind the bag, it gets through Buckner! Here comes Knight, and the Mets win it,” he said. “If one picture is worth a thousand words, you have seen about a million.”

And in 1988, with the Dodgers in the World Series, outfielder Kirk Gibson had hurt both of his legs in the prior series and wasn’t sure if he was going to play. But with two outs in the ninth, a man on base, and the Dodgers down a run, Gibson was called on to pinch hit. He limped up to the plate, and then a miracle happened, which Scully captured poetically.

“High fly ball into right field, she is gone!” Scully said. “In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.”

A Lasting Influence

Scully’s iconic style has made him an inspiration for many generations of sports broadcasters who followed in his footsteps at WFUV and at Fordham.

“His vocabulary, his storytelling, his personality—everything. He just was perfect,” ESPN NBA announcer Mike Breen, FCRH ’83, said in the 2020 WFUV Sports documentary. “It made you … [want]to make sure you were always prepared anytime you went on the air. You might have had two exams that day or [been]having trouble at home that day—it didn’t matter. You had to have a certain standard for WFUV that began with Vin Scully.”

Ahrens said that Scully always made time for the students and the station. The students usually interviewed him about once a year for the weekly One on One call-in show, and Ahrens said he hosted at least two workshops with the students over the phone.

“Vin’s on the phone, they can’t see him in person, and the control room is packed,” he said. “He was always generous with his time when he had it. And he didn’t have to, but he loved FUV, he loved Fordham, and he was always willing to help out.”

Ahrens remembered shortly after he took the job in 1997 he reached out to the Dodgers to try to set up a time for students to interview Scully. The Dodgers’ media team took his number and said they would try to see what they could do.

“I was in the newsroom, and we had a PA system and the [front desk manager]hops on the PA system and says, ‘Bob Ahrens, Vin Scully on the phone,’” he said, with a laugh. “You can imagine the whole newsroom turned silent.”

WFUV Sports named its lifetime achievement award after him—the Vin Scully Lifetime Achievement Award in Sports Broadcasting—which Kay took home in 2018.

“To be given an award with Vin Scully’s name on it is beyond anything I could have ever imagined,” Kay said at the awards ceremony. “He is the patron saint of WFUV Sports, he is the patron saint of anybody who does baseball play-by-play. He is the best at what he’s done.”

Ryan Ruocco, FCRH ’08, who calls Yankees games on YES and basketball games on ESPN, wrote that “Vin was truly one of one.”

“It’s impossible to put into words the impact Vin Scully has had on broadcasting, our Fordham/WFUV family, and the sport of baseball,” Ruocco wrote. “His storytelling and excellence behind the mic was matched only by his grace, generosity, and kindness.”

Scully impacted even those who didn’t step behind the microphone. Pitcher Nick Martinez, who attended the Gabelli School of Business for three years before he was drafted in the 2011 MLB draft, had the chance to meet Scully in 2015.

Martinez said he was “awestruck at first.”

“And then once we got talking, I thought it was extremely cool just being able to talk about our campus and our school, and some of the other guys that came before me. He was sharp, naming some of the guys that were on the [Fordham] team currently, and how we just had a couple guys drafted. I just thought it was extremely cool that we had that connection,” he recalled.

Mike Watts, GABELLI ’14, who calls games for ESPN, Westwood One, and other networks, said that Scully and his legacy at WFUV inspired him to come to Fordham.

“There is no WFUV Sports without Vin Scully,” Watts said. “His name gave all of us credibility. To have the greatest at anything come from your school, your radio station, your program—it’s the light that all of us were following.”

The fundraiser? An online auction, the third such event hosted by the Fordham College Alumni Association (FCAA), with a novel twist this year: celebrity alumni. Several offered virtual face time to the highest bidder, helping to propel the event far beyond its usual total.

The auction “gets bigger and better every year,” with all proceeds going toward scholarships and grants for students, said Debra Caruso Marrone, FCRH ’81, the association’s president.

It’s one of several events sponsored by the FCAA each year, complementing the broader efforts of the Fordham University Alumni Association, the Office of Alumni Relations, and other groups that serve students and the alumni community.

Founded in 1905, the FCAA is the University’s oldest alumni organization, and primarily serves Fordham College at Rose Hill students and alumni.

Contacting Celebrity Alumni

The idea of featuring celebrity alumni in December’s auction was driven in part by the pandemic, which put the kibosh on, say, auctioning off event tickets. “We really had to pivot,” said Christa Treitmeier-Meditz, FCRH ’85, who spearheaded the effort to reach out to various prominent alumni.

In the end, they were able to auction off a virtual comedy writing lesson with Saturday Night Live writer Streeter Seidell, FCRH ’05 (someone bought that for his wife, an aspiring comedy writer, Treitmeier-Meditz said). They also got help from some prominent alumni thespians: Golden Globe winner Dylan McDermott, FCLC ’83, contributed a virtual meet, and Golden Globe winner and former Oscar nominee Patricia Clarkson, FCLC ’82, contributed a virtual master class and a post-pandemic in-person engagement—dinner out and tickets to the next Broadway show she appears in.

People also contributed various items, memorabilia, or experiences, such as a master cooking class or a trip around Manhattan by yacht. “It’s everything and anything,” Treitmeier-Meditz said. “The Fordham alumni community is very generous.”

Other planned events were canceled due to the pandemic lockdown last year: a sit-down for a dozen alumni with John Brennan, FCRH ’77, former CIA director and counterterrorism adviser to President Barack Obama, and an event with sportscasters Michael Kay, FCRH ’82, and Mike Breen, FCRH ’83.

Through such events, the association has raised money for various funds, including a summer internship fund for journalism majors, recently renamed for Jim Dwyer, FCRH ’79, the New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner who died in 2020. A new scholarship fund named for Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, is for students who reach new heights of academic achievement after arriving at the University.

The association provides other important support such as funding for undergraduate research and for student travel, noted Maura Mast, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill. “I’m so pleased to see how that support has grown over the past several years,” she said. “I am grateful for their commitment to the college, to our alumni, and to the larger Fordham family.”

The association’s Giving Day gift—a matching gift—was split between two scholarship funds: the FCAA Endowed Legacy Scholarship, a need-based scholarship for legacy students, and the Rev. George J. McMahon, S.J., Endowed Scholarship, awarded to students at Fordham College at Rose Hill and the Gabelli School of Business.

Serving on the board is a labor of love, Caruso Marrone said. “We’re doing something good: we’re raising funds, we’re helping students go through school,” in addition to bringing alumni together at events, she said. “The members of our board [are] of various age groups, various backgrounds, various careers, [and] we all come together and do this work and enjoy it immensely. We have just a great group of people who are dedicated to Fordham.”

For this third annual Fordham Night at the stadium, the Fordham University Alumni Association worked with the Yankees to give the first 1,000 ticket-buyers a custom jersey with a Fordham patch on the sleeve.

Prior to the game, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham—and perhaps the University’s No. 1 Yankee fan (he once threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the stadium)—stopped by the YES Network broadcast booth. He provided Fordham hats to the announcers, including former Yankee Paul O’Neill, who was calling the game with Michael Kay, FCRH ’82. When Kay gave Fordham a shoutout and mentioned Father McShane during the broadcast, O’Neill remarked on his “nice new (maroon) golf hat,” and recalled going to a Fordham basketball game once at the “really cool” Rose Hill Gym.

Also in attendance was Laura Auricchio, Ph.D., the new dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, a native  New Yorker and longtime Yankee fan whose great-grandfather once staged a production of Verdi’s Aida at the original Yankee Stadium. In an update to an Instagram post celebrating the home team’s victory, she noted that one lucky fan, Patrick Mulvey, FCLC ’78, even caught a foul ball hit by Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner. “Truly a magical night!” she wrote.

Photos courtesy of Sally Benner, Barbara Ann Hall, Sara Hunt Munoz, and Bryan Zabala.

Does it feel odd to get a lifetime achievement award with, hopefully, a lot of career left?
Yes! I’m wondering if someone is trying to tell me something. A few days prior to the Scully Award, I was inducted into the New York State Broadcasters Hall of Fame. I guess it’s a good thing to get them while I can still enjoy them.

Did you always know you wanted to go to Fordham and then become a sports broadcaster?
I knew I wanted to be a Yankees announcer since I was nine years old, and when my sister Debbie attended Fordham and told me about WFUV, I knew that it was the best place for me to pursue that dream. I actually wanted to be the Yankees first baseman, but I realized I couldn’t hit and didn’t enjoy getting hit by the baseball.

Are fears about the future of baseball overblown, or is the game actually in danger of losing its place as America’s pastime?
It’s not overblown. The game pace is too slow-moving. I love it the way it is, but I am not the future of the game. You have to capture young people who have come from a “microwave” society. They want things happening instantly, and baseball is not that. They need to figure out how to appeal to the younger audience while keeping the integrity of the game in place.

Why are there still so few female MLB announcers?
I wish I knew. I think sports is slow to change. And it’s not so much the decision-makers, although they have to take some of the blame, but rather the viewers and listeners who complain when something is different in their broadcast. But people like Suzyn Waldman and Doris Burke and Sarah Kustok are changing all that.

You’ve said that the “stick to sports” idea doesn’t make sense, because the political elements of sports are there, so they need to be talked about. Do you feel like, on the whole, people understand that now more than they did five years ago?
I think people have selective outrage. They want you to stick to sports when you give an opinion that they don’t agree with. Now, I would rather not go into things other than sports, but when the president brings sports into the equation, it’s hard not to talk about that.

When it comes to journalism, you expressed your disgust with last year’s layoffs at the New York Daily News. How do you convince young sports journalists—and young journalists in general—that they shouldn’t jump ship and think about another industry?
It would be hard to be honest and tell them that. The print industry is not exactly thriving, and I think that’s a bad thing for this country. If we don’t have a free, independent press, then those in power simply cannot and will not be checked. That’s dangerous. I would tell all these kids that if you become proficient at writing, there will be a job for you in the industry, either in print or behind the scenes in TV. And, of course, a good writer can always go to a thriving website, like The Athletic, and earn a good living.

How has having two young children changed the way you approach your work?
It has put it all into perspective. In the past, I was a workaholic and would take any job or new opportunity. My workaholic past certainly played a role in my present success, but now I’m happy with what I have professionally because I’m so happy personally.

What has it been like for both you and your friend from Fordham, NBA announcer Mike Breen, FCRH ’83, to succeed in the ways you have?
He is one of my best friends in the world. We are the same two guys who used to sit in the campus center at Fordham and tell each other about our dreams. He wanted to be the Knicks’ announcer and I wanted to be the Yankees’ announcer. The fact that we were privy to each other’s dreams and know how starry-eyed we were makes it sweeter to enjoy each other’s success.

You’ve been a mentor to Ryan Ruocco, FCRH ’08, and many other young announcers. What do you enjoy most about your role as a mentor?
I just like to provide whatever help I can give to a young person. I never really had that entrée into the business when I got out of college, so if I can provide a little help or lift to someone, that would be awesome and would maybe provide a couple of more speakers who have kind words at my funeral.

How did you develop your style as an announcer? Did that come out of those who taught or mentored you?
I think it happened organically and was a combination of those I listened to growing up, those I spoke with along the way, and those I worked with. You end up becoming an amalgamation of hopefully the best of the people you came across in your life.

What’s the most memorable game you’ve ever called?
Probably Game 1 of the 1998 World Series, when the Yankees scored seven runs in the seventh inning against the Padres at Yankee Stadium. After the grand slam by Tino Martinez, the stadium was literally shaking and I just leaned back and took it all in. It was pretty special.

Both, it turns out, burnished their nascent broadcasting careers sitting next to each other at ABC News Radio after being hired on the same day in June 1963.

Both revisited the occasion, and the decades that followed, at On the Record, WFUV’s annual awards dinner, on Nov. 7 at Fordham Law School, at which Koppel received the CharlesOsgood Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism.

“You’re a model of broadcast journalism at its very best,” Osgood, FCRH ’54, a WFUV alumnus, said in presenting the award to his longtime friend.

Koppel recounted the pair’s early, but ultimately unsuccessful, effort to create a morning news show for ABC television. “We became friends, and we conspired on certain schemes to obtain fame and perhaps also hopefully wealth,” Koppel, who briefly attended Fordham Law School before committing full-time to journalism, jocularly recalled. “All of those schemes failed.”

Nevertheless, he said, with both he and Osgood now nearer to what Koppel called the conclusion of their professional journeys, “it turned out alright.”

Longtime New York Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay, FCRH ’82, was also honored at the dinner, as the recipient of the Vin Scully Award for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting,

The award, Kay said, had deep resonance given that it is named for his broadcasting idol.

“To be given an award with Vin Scully’s name on it is beyond anything I could have ever imagined,” Kay, who will start his 28th year calling Yankees games next spring, said following a short videotaped message from Scully. “He is the patron saint of WFUV Sports, he is the patron saint of anybody who does baseball play-by-play. He is the best at what he’s done.”

In presenting the award, John Filippelli, the president of production and programing at the YES Network, said Kay embodied excellence.

“You are truly a renaissance broadcaster, Michael,” he said. “You’re generous to all your boothmates. You’re warm. You’re extremely knowledgeable, always respectful. You really embody integrity.”

Proceeds from the awards dinner, which this year raised more than $230,000, help fund WFUV’s training programs for University students. Among the roughly 200 attendees were current CBS Sunday Morning anchor Jane Pauley, cartoonist Garry Trudeau, and former Mets and Yankees pitchers and current broadcasters David Cone and Al Leiter.

In a Q&A discussion moderated by Sara Kugel, FCRH ’11, a producer at CBS Sunday Morning, both Kay and Koppel soberly assessed the current state of journalism, with Koppel saying that both “the business side” of the industry and the internet were to blame for journalism’s decline. He suggested objective reporting was being compromised by the ease with which people can disseminate their views, which, he suggested, are too often noxious and divisive.

“The more outrageous you make that website, the more hits you’re going to get; the more hits you get, the more money you make,” Koppel said.

Kay agreed. “Any person who’s sitting in his mom’s basement with Cheetos dust on his fingers could report on news now,” he said.

But Kay, who recalled that he has wanted to be Yankees broadcaster since he was 9 years old, nevertheless encouraged the 20 WFUV students at the awards dinner to pursue the trade with abandon.

Two of those students also received recognitions. Julia Rist, FCRH ’20, was given the WFUV Award for Excellence in News Journalism, and Raffaele Elia, FCRH ’19, was presented with the Bob Ahrens Award for Excellence in Sports Journalism—named for the station’s recently retired executive sports producer.

“Never turn down an opportunity to be on the air,” Kay told Rist, Elia, and their student colleagues. “Work harder than anybody else. That should be the norm. Just like running hard to first base should be the norm, not the exception.”

–Richard Khavkine

The trophy, along with security escorts provided by the Yankees, will be at the annual Fordham Athletics Hall of Fame Brunch that runs from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the McGinley Center Ballroom. Tickets to the event cost $50 for adults and $25 for children. An order form can be downloaded here.

The coveted trophy won’t be the only Yankees fixture at the brunch. Yankees radio announcer Michael Kay (FCRH ’82) will be hosting the event, which honors the latest crop of inductees into the Fordham Athletics Hall of Fame. Guests will be able to take their picture with the trophy.

At 1 p.m., the trophy will be moved from the brunch to the Rose Hill Gym for the start of the Fordham men’s basketball contest versus Temple University. Tickets to the game are $17 for reserved seats, $12 for general admission and $5 for children. There is no charge for Fordham students.

The World Series trophy will be situated in the corner of the gym and be available for photography with fans. Security officials will escort it from the gym at approximately 3 p.m.

– Joe DiBari

In the end, the Dodgers walked away with the win, Koufax with his place in baseball’s Hall of Fame, and the commentator, Vin Scully, FCRH ’49, with the hearts of sports fans everywhere.

Scully hit a home run of his own in May, when he delivered the commencement address to the University’s Class of 2000. With the grace of a natural storyteller, Scully seamlessly blended anecdotes and advice, all in the honeyed voice that is so familiar.

“I am one of you,” he told the graduates. “I walked the halls you walked. I sat in the same classrooms. I took the same notes and sweated out the final exams; drank coffee in the café and played sports on your grassy fields.”

Scully said that the words he associates with Fordham are home, love, and hope. Fordham was home to him while he was a student at Fordham Prep and the University. He made lifelong friends there and loved every minute. And it was at Fordham that he began to pursue his hopes and dreams.

“Leave some pauses and some gaps in your life so that you can do something spontaneously rather than just being led by the arm,” he said. “And, above all, dream. Don’t ever stop dreaming. Dream for yourselves and dream for us because out of your dreams will come hope that we will have a better world and a better moral climate.”

Vincent Edward Scully’s story began in the Bronx, where he was born to a hardworking couple from County Cavan, Ireland. The Scullys sometimes walked young Vin in his baby carriage across Fordham’s Rose Hill campus.

“My mother once told me that she would say, ‘Vincent, I dream that someday you’ll study here,’” Scully has said. The dream was prophetic: In the 1940s, Vin won a partial scholarship to Fordham, where he majored in communications.

Outside the classroom, Scully wrote a sports column for The Ram student newspaper, was a stringer for The New York Times, and was a member of the Shaving Mugs, a campus barbershop quartet. He announced football, basketball, and baseball games on Fordham’s WFUV. A weak-hitting outfielder on Fordham’s baseball team, Scully managed to hit one home run during his college career. But the moment was marred somewhat when the Bronx Home News ran a photo of him in his moment of glory above a caption that identified him as “Jim Tully.”

Still, despite other interests, the young man had his heart set on broadcasting. Scully told the graduates that as a boy he would crawl beneath his family’s four-legged radio console during broadcasts of sporting events so that he could hear the roar of the crowd “wash over me.” Appropriate for the boy who would become the Voice of the Dodgers and, for many, of baseball itself: In the past 51 years, Scully has called Hank Aaron’s record-breaking 715th home run, three perfect games, 18 no-hitters, 25 World Series, and 12 All-Star games.

Scully graduated from Fordham in 1949 and spent that summer at a CBS radio affiliate in Washington, D.C. At 23, he returned to New York to talk to the network. Later that week, his mother came to him with wonderful news.

“She was flustered and excited,” Scully recalls. “‘You’ll never guess who called!’ she said. I said, ‘Who?’ She replied, ‘Red Skelton!’”

Actually, it was Red Barber, the network’s legendary chief sportscaster. Barber said CBS radio’s college football announcer was ill, and the station needed Scully to cover a game that Saturday between Boston University and the University of Maryland. Less than a year later, Scully landed a job on the Brooklyn Dodgers’ broadcasting team.

Scully also became a CBS and NBC announcer for baseball, football, and golf, and one of the most accomplished broadcasters in sports history. Inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982, he has won myriad sportscasting awards, hosted his own TV show, and played himself in films, commercials, and even on Sony PlayStation’s MLB 2000 baseball video game. Last season, he served as the emcee at Major League Baseball’s All-Century Team induction ceremony during the World Series.

But Scully admits that in 1950, he still had a lot to learn, despite being hired by the Dodgers for $5,000 a year. “Red taught me two important lessons that I still carry to this day: Trust your instincts and allow the crowd to help you tell the story,” Scully says.

Scully has long been known as much for his thoughtfulness, modesty, and gentlemanly demeanor as for his ability to paint word pictures for his audience.

New York Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay, FCRH ’82, says he was impressed with Scully’s graciousness when they met in the New York Mets press box. “He’s blazed a path for a lot of Fordham student broadcasters who are now in the business,” Kay says. In fact, Scully can be considered the dean of a Fordham tradition in sports broadcasting that includes Ed Randall, FCRH ’74; WPIX sports anchor Sal Marchiano, FCRH ’63; Mike Breen, FCRH ’83, the Voice of the Knicks; and Nets and Giants play-by-play announcer Bob Papa, GABELLI ’86.

Scully’s masterful delivery combines dugoutese and diamond pathos with a touch of poetry. He paraphrases Admiral Perry’s immortal words after a poor Dodger performance: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” He describes bases loaded, no puts for the opposing team with the word, “The Dodgers have the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.”

“He’s simply the best announcer in baseball history,” contends ESPN and San Francisco Giants announcer Jon Miller. “In high school, I once picked up a Dodger doubleheader on the radio while I was driving 10 straight hours to visit my grandmother in Oregon. Vin kept me interested the whole way. It’s more [than the fact that]  he knows the game and does his homework; he has an innate sense of when and how to use information.”

Today, Scully, 72, says he believes that sports announcing was his destiny. The “Velvet Voice” has logged millions of miles traveling from ballpark to ballpark, and countless hours of broadcast time, but he has no plans to retire.

“I love what I’m doing, and I’ll continue to do it as long as I’m healthy,” he says. “I still get goosebumps when there’s a big play.”

—Bill Glovin