For 67 years, Vin Scully’s soothing voice was more than just the soundtrack of Dodgers baseball. It was the soundtrack of our sporting lives. The Masters. The World Series. The NFL. Tennis.
His voice will forever ring in our ears, but it was silence that was Scully’s greatest gift.
Fastball … there’s a high fly to deep left centerfield … Buckner goes back to the fence … it is gone!
… More than 1 minute of roars raining on Henry Aaron as he rounds the base paths …
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.
Little roller up along first … behind the bag … it gets by Buckner … here comes Knight and the Mets win it!
… 1 minute, 48 seconds of the roar “pouring like water from a shower head” …
If one picture is worth a thousand words, you have seen about a million words.
High fly ball into right field … she is … gone!
… 1 minute, 8 seconds of roars enveloping Kirk Gibson as he hobbled and reverse-piston-pumped his way into Dodgers lore …
In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.
So it is that simple. The roll of the putt …
… 35 seconds as silence and then groans wash over Johnny Miller’s miss from 15 feet on the 18th green.
And one birdie flew away … and now there’s one last shot left in the arsenal and it belongs to Tom Weiskopf. … Tom, a bridesmaid three times for the first time in his life led yesterday in a round at the Masters. … Reminder that upon the conclusion of play, we’ll have the winners in the trophy room …
… 47 seconds as silence draped Weiskopf as he stalked, assessed, glared and ultimately agonized a putt that slid by high on the right …
And so the heartbreak and disappointment registers on Tom Weiskopf’s face and on the lips of those who cheered him for four days. And hail to the victor … Jack Nicklaus wins his fifth Masters green coat.
“Ah, that 1975 Masters,” Scully told Golf Digest’s Guy Yocum. “When Tom Weiskopf and Johnny Miller had putts on the last hole to tie Jack Nicklaus, I said at the time, ‘So it comes down to this …’ and briefly outlined the scene as clearly as I could. At that point, I swiveled the microphone on my headset over my head, away from my mouth. I did that so I could resist the announcer’s temptation to say something else. There really is nothing to say at that point. The silence as Tom and Johnny prepared to putt was profound. Thousands of people encircled 18, yet I could hear birds chirping in the trees. Not a sound from the patrons, and it was that silence that was the star. It conveyed all the tension, expectance and suspense. To me, there's nothing more magical in golf than the nothing sound of silence.”
Nobody in the history of broadcasting ever said it better. And for all his eloquence and grace and storytelling and poetry and chorus, when the moments were the biggest, Vin Scully said it best when he said nothing at all.
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After 94 years, sports’ greatest voice has gone silent one last time. Rest in peace, Vin.
Scott Michaux