Fifteen years after he scratched a lifelong itch and moved to New York City, Steve Wynn has settled in nicely to life on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The relocation also breathed fire into a music career that already had notched landmark albums by his first band, the Dream Syndicate, collaborations with Gutterball and a slew of excellent early solo releases. Once he turned 40, Wynn rolled up his sleeves and really went to work, cranking out masterpieces like 2001’s Here Come The Miracles and 2003’s Static Transmission. Wynn, wife/drummer Linda Pitmon, Peter Buck (R.E.M.) and Scott McCaughey (Minus 5) are set to begin a U.S. tour. Read our Q&A with Wynn. (Also read our 2001 Q&A with Wynn, conducted by novelist George Pelecanos, as well as our overview of the Dream Syndicate and its fellow Paisley Underground bands.)
Steve Wynn: Vin Scully has been the Los Angeles (and previously Brooklyn) Dodgers’ play-by-play announcer since 1950. Is that enough for you? How about this? As he has for most of his career, he still calls the games alone, no wisecracking color commentator to give him a breather, not our Vinny. But enough of these Herculean feats of longevity and stamina—he’s also the best announcer in the history of the game. Listen to any game he calls. (The fact that you can listen to him these days from anywhere in the world on mlb.com is one of the best uses of the Internet, in my humble opinion.) You will be blown away by his knowledge, his poetry, his way of taking the game to whole new places at least a few times every inning. I hate to think of a day when he’s no longer on the radio. (Honorable mention: Phil Rizzuto’s O Holy Cow; order this book right now.) Video after the jump.
3 replies on “From The Desk Of Steve Wynn: Vin Scully”
Scully is absolutely one of the last (the last?) of a dying breed. A true professional who puts calling the ball game above all else — who is equally capable of getting just as excited about a great play or dramatic home run by the other team — as opposed to so many of these jokers who are up in the booth wetting themselves when the home team scores and then, just as quickly, when fortunes turn, contemplate blowing their brains out when the home team lets them down. Anyone who has checked in on the homers working the Cubs, White Sox, and Rays TV broadcasts (the ones I happen to get) can attest to how bad it’s gotten. Embarrassing and nauseating. News flash: Rooting as hard for your team as the ass-hat in the bleachers who’s just left his seat to go on beer run number seven is not broadcasting. It would be interesting to hear Vinnie’s thoughts on the state of baseball announcing today, but I’m sure he’s got way too much class to diss these clowns like he could.
Cubs TV broadcasters don’t root nearly as hard you’re making it out to be. Do you watch them on a regular basis?
Is Scully simulcast on the radio?
Compared to before, the Cubs broadcasters are saints. They are knowledgeable and quite pleasant to listen to.
And yes, Vin Scully is on the radio – the first three innings, which he does (alone) at the same time he’s on TV.