In two weeks, Vin Scullys career will be over, and all the baseball world will have will be memories. On Monday, the Hall of Fame voice of the Dodgers shared some of his own memories in a wide-ranging call with baseball writers.Whats left between now and Oct. 2 is saying goodbye, and enjoying the final handful of games that Scully calls. The enjoyment is both for the man and the audience, and he will Freddie Freeman Cool Base Red Jersey leave with the feeling that there is nothing he wanted to call that he has not gotten to call.My cup does runneth over, Scully said. Ive been so fortunate. Theyre not my accomplishments, and I stre s that, but Ive done 20-some-odd no-hitters and X number of perfect games and X All-Stars and X World Series games, and a big football game, and The Masters golf, so no. God has been incredibly kind to allow me to be in the position to watch and to broadcast all of these somewhat monumental events. So, Im filled with thanksgiving and the fact that Ive been given such a chance to view but none of those are my achievements. I just happened to be there.Scully has been there for 67 years, the voice of so many things that have happened. As he winds down his career, he thought back to a time even before it began and a happy coincidence of the distant past tying back to the near future.MORE: Cla sic photos of Vin Scully | Rare photos of Ebbets Field from the SN archivesI was not quite 9 years old, Scully said. I was walking home from grammar school. I went by a Chinese laundry. In the window was the linescore of the World Series game, that would be Oct. 2, 1936. The Yankees beat up the Giants, 18-4. As a little boy, my first reaction was, Oh, the poor Giants. And then, my grammar school was 20 blocks from the old Polo Grounds, so I could walk after school at 2:30, catch the game at 3:15 for nothing, because I was a member of the Police Athletic League and the Catholic Youth Organization. So, thats when I fell in love with baseball and became a true fan. My last game with the Giants will be Oct. 2, 2016. That will be exactly 80 years, to the minute, from when I first fell in love with the game. So it seems like the plan was laid out for me, and all I had to do was follow the instructions.Scullys tales of old New York extend back even further, to a time before he was born, but to really show how he is uniquely positioned to connect the games distant past to its present, one of the things well all mi s so much about listening to him.Vin Scully, center, sits in the WMGM radio both adjacent to the WOR-TV at Ebbets Field for a Brooklyn Dodgers game in 1953. (Sporting News Archives)The borough of Brooklyn had an atmosphere of, its us against the world, Scully said. The Giants were the lordly team over on the Harlem River, and they would come over to Brooklyn. In the olden days, they tell me that (John) McGraw would bring the Giants over to Brooklyn in horse-drawn carriages, and the people in Brooklyn, the real fans, would throw things down on top of them. So, the rivalry was somewhat bitter because of the fact that there was a great deal of friction. At least now, you have several hundred miles separating the cities. Oh, sure, there are Giants fans down here and there are Dodgers fans in San Francisco, but its not quite the bitter rivalry that they had in New York, and Im delighted for that. I really am. Ender Inciarte Jersey I grew up, really, in the bleachers in the old Polo Grounds. So, my seat would be, oh, thinking back, maybe 450 feet from home plate or, if I was lucky, Id be in the grandstand. But no matter where you sat, you felt the rivalry, because the people worked together, lived together and argued all year long.Scully himself was part of that, and he recalled a time when he worked at the post office during the holiday season to make some extra money.MORE: Why Vin Scully is baseball's Forrest GumpWe would be slotting mail, hundreds of them, standing in Dansby Swanson Jersey front of the little cubby holes and putting mail in the holes, Scully said. We would spend all the time slotting and arguing over who was better, Duke Snider or Willie Mays, and et cetera.After the Dodgers and Giants moved to California, and Scully remained the Dodgers broadcaster, he credited the transistor radio for enhancing his popularity. It was to such an extent that the crowds in Los Angeles in the pre-headphones days might laugh at his jokes or groan at the bad ones, as he felt like it was a true conversation with the patrons in the stands.When they started to respond, Ill always remember the worst pun I ever gave was in the Coliseum, Scully said. Joe Torre was the catcher, and he caught a foul tip off his hand. He had to come out of the game, but the next day, he played third base. And I was just talking to the fans, and somehow this came out: I said, Well, theres Joe, playing third. If he does not ever put the gear back on behind the plate, he will forever be known as Chicken Catcher Torre. The groan from the crowd of 50-60 thousand was something Ill still remember to my dying day.Just as everyone who has had the privilege to listen to Scully at any point over the last 67 years will remember the joy of hearing his voice.
