Vin Scully once called 36 innings in 29 hours in two cities
For over 67 years, baseball fans have marveled at the brilliance of broadcasting legend Vin Scully.
A big part of Scully’s allure is that everything about his presentation is seamless and timeless. He’s simply baseball’s greatest living storyteller, and he achieves that without ever making himself the story.
[Vin Scully announces Muhammad Ali’s death during Dodgers broadcast]
We’d like to change that right now though, because on this weekend some 27 years ago, Scully’s dedication to baseball and his craft was so remarkable that it deserves to be celebrated.
In a span of just 29 hours between June 3-4, 1989, Scully managed to call 36 innings of baseball while squeezing in a flight from St. Louis to Houston.
The craziness began on Saturday afternoon when Scully was on hand to call the Game of the Week on NBC between the Cardinals and Cubs, which St. Louis won 6-5 in 10 innings. From there, Scully was driven through St. Louis and then flew to Houston, where he was scheduled to call the Sunday series finale between the Dodgers and Astros.
However, instead of going directly to the hotel, Scully stopped by the Astrodome where the Saturday night game was going into extra innings. Scully then took over the lead play-by-play duties and ended up calling 13 more innings.The Dodgers would lose that game 5-4 in 22 innings, bringing Scully’s total for the day to 23 innings.
That’s pretty amazing.
We’re sure Scully wishes he could have slept in on Sunday, but an afternoon finale meant he had to be back at the ballpark bright and early. And wouldn’t you know, that game ended up going 13 innings, with the Dodgers eventually losing 7-6.
[Elsewhere: Dodgers could eat $35 million after moving on from Carl Crawford]
Scully called every single one of those 13 innings, bringing his total to 36 innings in 29 hours. That’s the equivalent of four regulation games.
Remember that next time you listen to Scully call a game with the same energy and the same passion he had 67 years ago, when he first debuted in the booth. No one has ever loved their job more than him, and no one has ever done it better.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813
