Stories By Scully: Vin Scully’s Top Stories of the 2016 Season (So Far): Part 2 Of 2

When the time comes it won’t be easy to say goodbye to Vin Scully. Scully has years of stories under his belt and insight to the Los Angeles Dodgers that no one else does. Entering his final season with the team was hard enough for fans to accept, but now going into the second half of the season it seems time is not slowing down.

On Tuesday, we shared part one of a two-part editorial on Scully’s best stories of the 2016 season. This time around, we will take a look at more Scully stories that have captured the attention of fans across the country.

On Albert Pujols

Scully has always referenced his childhood when in the broadcast booth, and in one of the last tune-ups before the start of the 2016 regular season, he connects Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim first baseman Albert Pujols to tobacco.

Prince Albert is a tobacco company that has been around since the beginning of the 20th century.

“Do you have Albert in a can?” Scully would ask a tobacco store when he called with his friends. “Yes,” the store clerk would say. Scully would retaliate with the answer, “Well, you better let him out.”

This was the general prank that was going around back in Scully’s heyday. Instead of realizing that he was making a fool of himself while losing a nickel to make this joke come to life, Scully insisted he was back in a time when he was 11-years-old again and thought it was the most hilarious prank call in the world.

Vin is that type of broadcaster: one who can connect one of the great sluggers in Albert Pujols to a prank call during his childhood involving a tobacco company.

On Sandy Koufax

This Dodgers hurler took some time to develop into the Hall of Fame caliber player fans have come to know and love, and Scully was the first to see back when Koufax was trying out for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1955.

Scully’s initial thoughts when he saw the southpaw from Brooklyn warming up on the mound for the first time in Vero Beach, Fla?

“No chance!” Scully said.

“I must be the worst baseball scout in the whole world,” Scully says as he opens up the story on how he underestimated a kid who would go on to have a dominant career.

Scully cited Koufax’s suntan and claimed that the pitcher was spending his time relaxing at the beach instead of focusing on baseball.

“And he threw hard. Not any harder than some of the guys I faced when I was trying to play ball in college. And he bounced some curveballs.”

He also said that the Dodgers were just taking a look at Koufax and that he would probably never see him again.

“Yeah, right. Way to go, Vin!” he said when closing the story. At 88-years-old, Scully still has the grace and sense of humor to pilot a story during a broadcast, and this one was no different.

Vin Scully’s 10 Greatest Broadcasting Calls: No. 10-6

On Pushing

With a pump of the fist during Dodgers Fan Fest on Jan. 30, Scully was ready to embark on his 67th and final season as the Dodgers play-by-play broadcaster. With the site of Scully appearing before Dodgers Nation, always comes a story. This time Scully opened up with a joke first.

A man needs “a push”, so he knocks on the door of a couple at three o’clock in the morning in the pouring rain, to which the husband says that he will not help the man with his alleged “push”. The husband marches back up to bed, but his wife tells the husband that he had had the same problem two months earlier in which he had needed “a push” because his car had broken down, so why should the man outside suffer in the rain?

The wife references a time when her husband needed “a push” because his car had broken down, so without any prior knowledge to what kind of “push” this man waiting in the rain needed, the husband makes his way towards the door.

“Where are you?” the husband says to the man after he opens the door again.

“The swing,”

The moral of the story according to Vin was that a push is necessary for any part of the baseball season and that fans strive to do their best to “push” the Dodgers into contention especially during the summer.

On Roy Campanella

Baseball fans nowadays have been taking out their phones and using the flash during night games, creating a sea of flashing lights. This is especially prominent at Dodger Stadium.

Dodgers fans will remember former catcher Roy Campanella as one of the great all-around threats to the game of baseball during his tenure from 1948-1957. But a night this past May made Scully think about his memory from an exhibition between the Dodgers and New York Yankees from May 7, 1959.

More than 93,000 spectators gathered in the quirky confines of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to see a fallen star in Campanella grace the baseball diamond one last time, over a year after an automobile accident that left the former catcher paralyzed from the shoulders down.

In honor of a player that had done so much for a franchise, include clinching its first World Series in 1955, fans lit candles in the stadium and held them high in the air while the lights at the Coliseum were shut down.

(h/t: David Funk)

The result was this everlasting image as teammate and former Dodgers shortstop Pee Wee Reese rolled Campanella out to the middle of the baseball field at the Coliseum.

With today’s times, the capturing lights can now come to fruition every time there is a night game at Dodger Stadium. Scully was reminded of a night so momentous in Dodgers history involving the flashing lights.

On A Baseball Glove

You know that old glove that is stored in the garage somewhere inside the house that hasn’t been worn in quite some time? Will Venable cherishes those gloves.

Venable was signed by the Dodgers on June 14 and made his first start two days later. Scully highlighted the past history that he and manager Dave Roberts had (Roberts was Venable’s coach in San Diego from 2011-2015).

Venable’s 2012 season with the Padres got off to a rocky start as he made five errors in his first 17 games. Chatting with Roberts back then made Venable realize that his glove wasn’t working in the outfielder. So from one outfielder to another, Roberts loaned Venable a glove that he had worn in 2005.

In 401 games to that point, Venable made five errors while playing the outfield. Scully, a history nerd, could emphasize the relationship that now-manager and player have while with the Dodgers.

Vin Scully’s 10 Greatest Broadcasting Calls: No. 5-1

Stories By Scully: Honorable Mentions