The Dodgers announced that longtime and legendary broadcaster Vince Cooley died Tuesday. He is 94 years old.
“He was the face of the Dodgers and more. He was their conscience, their poet laureate, from Jackie Robinson to Sandy Coufax, from Kirk Gibson to Clayton Kershaw , he captured their beauty and recorded their glory. Vin Scully was their heartbeat. The Dodgers — in many ways, the heartbeat of the whole of Los Angeles,” the team said in a statement.
“Vin Scully is the heartbeat of the Dodgers — in many ways, the heartbeat of Los Angeles as a whole.”
Scully began his broadcasting career in 1949 after attending Fordham University to study journalism and as a student broadcaster. He joined the Dodgers’ radio and TV booth during the 1950 season, when they were still in Brooklyn. Sculley came to Los Angeles with the Dodgers in 1958 and remained with the club until his retirement in 2016.
He has also worked on national broadcasts for Major League Baseball, the NFL and the PGA Tour. He was with CBS Sports from 1975-82 and NBC Sports from 1983-89.
Scully was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982 as a recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award and received the Commissioner’s Historical Achievement Award from Bud Selig in 2014. He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.
“We’ve lost an icon,” Dodgers president and CEO Stan Carsten said in a statement. “Dodgers’ Vin Sculley is one of the greatest voices in all of sports. He’s a giant, not just as a broadcaster, but as a humanitarian. He loves people. He loves life. He loves baseball and the Dodgers Team. He loves his family. His voice will always be heard and etched in the minds of all of us. I know he looks forward to joining the love of his life, Sandy. Our thoughts and prayers go out to us during this time His family paid tribute to the difficult times. Vin will be truly missed.
