Legendary Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully, who is in his 67th and final season calling games, has declined Fox Sports’ offer to work the MLB All-Star Game on July 12 in San Diego, SI.com’s Richard Deitsch reported Wednesday.
Brad Zager, who has known Scully since his time with Prime Ticket and KCAL-TV in the early 2000s, made the offer, per Deitsch.
He noted Scully was “appreciative” but “felt it was not his place to be in someone else’s broadcast booth.”
Scully even told Zager, “I’m not Kobe Bryant. I’m just out there calling games.”
The 88-year-old last called an All-Star Game in 1989, remembered for Bo Jackson’s leadoff home run while President Ronald Reagan was in the booth:
Scully began his Hall of Fame career as a 22-year-old in 1950 when the Dodgers were in Brooklyn and has been the golden voice of baseball ever since, receiving the highest of praises from many sporting personalities, including Sports Illustrated‘s Tom Verducci:
Vin Scully is only the finest, most-listened-to baseball broadcaster that ever lived, and even that honorific does not approach proper justice to the man. He ranks with Walter Cronkite among America’s most-trusted media personalities, with Frank Sinatra and James Earl Jones among its most-iconic voices, and with Mark Twain, Garrison Keillor and Ken Burns among its preeminent storytellers.
He’s been at the epicenter of the largest moments in sports, ranging from Hank Aaron’s 715th home run in 1974, to Mookie Wilson’s ground ball that went through Bill Buckner’s legs in the 1986 World Series to Kirk Gibson’s game-winning home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series:
In doing so, Scully became a familiar, friendly voice to millions of baseball fans who had a picture of every nuance the game had to offer thanks to him.
Like many fans who pair Scully’s voice with the game, Zager is trying to keep the broadcaster around the booth a bit longer, offering him a chance to work on postseason games, per Deitsch.
But Zager doesn’t find it likely that he’ll be calling games in October: “Knowing Vin the way I do, I don’t think it will happen. If the Dodgers are there in the postseason, I think we would look to at least talk again. But I honestly don’t think he’d want to call his last Dodgers game—and then call games in the postseason.”
So for fans around the nation and around the world who want to hear Scully do what he’s done best for almost 70 years, tuning in to the local feeds of Dodgers games will be their best opportunity to do so.
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