St. Louis, Mo., Aug 3, 2022 / 14:38 pm
Vin Scully, who called Los Angeles Dodgers baseball games for more than two-thirds of a century, died Tuesday at his home at the age of 94.
A gifted orator and storyteller who was dubbed a “poet-philosopher of baseball,” Scully deftly narrated numerous momentous events in baseball during his 67 seasons as a broadcaster. But more importantly — at least to him — Scully was a devout Catholic who found in his faith a source of joy and comfort and sought to share it with others through personal kindness and philanthropy.
A longtime parishioner at St. Jude the Apostle Church in Westlake Village, California, Scully was instrumental, along with Catholic Athletes for Christ, in arranging for Masses to be celebrated in the media interview room of Dodgers Stadium. For at least one of his games, he placed a framed portrait of Pope Francis in a chair next to him. Scully was famous for calling games alone — that is, without a color commentator — so the pictorial pope’s silence was apt.
Scully was active in his parish and numerous philanthropic endeavors. Despite being a private person outside of the recording booth, preferring to spend time with his family, he often would allow charities to auction off the privilege of having lunch with him to raise money for good causes, such as supporting people with Down syndrome. In 2020, he donated much of his collection of baseball memorabilia, collected over the decades, to raise money for charity.