Vin Scully
Sportscaster Vin Scully accepts the Icon Award onstage at The 2017 ESPYS at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California on July 12, 2017. Getty Images/ Kevin Winter

Veteran sportscaster Vin Scully received the Icon Award at the Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards Wednesday for his contribution to sports broadcasting. Actor Bryan Cranston presented the award, which is given to those whose careers have left a lasting impression on the sports world.

Scully began his acceptance speech for the award with: “Hi everybody, and a very pleasant good evening to you,” adding he missed saying it.

He said being a broadcaster of Major League Basketball was his boyhood dream and that he was “honored and humbled” to have fulfilled it.

Scully also added: “You know, God gave us memories so we can have memories in December, and in the December of my years I have collected so many roses and cherished each and every one of them, and you give me a rose tonight to join my collection for all those years. I am humbled, I am honored and I know another thing. My work was never ever a burden. I consider it always a blessing. God bless. Thank you so very much.”

On the occasion of the momentous honor, here are some facts about the broadcaster with the legendary voice:

  1. He was born in 1927 in the Bronx, New York City, and grew up in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. He went to school at Fordham Prep, before attending Fordham University, where he was involved in several extra curricular activities, including working for the college radio station.
  2. A relatively obscure fact about Scully is that he was on the baseball team at Fordham and also went to play a couple of games in other colleges, including Yale University.
  3. Scully fell in love with baseball when he was 8. After watching the results of the second game of the 1936 World Series at a Laundromat, he felt a pang of sympathy for the badly defeated New York Giants. He attended many games for free as he lived near the Polo Grounds and was inspired to become a football radio broadcaster.
  4. After he served in the U.S. Navy for two years and was hired by Red Barber, the sports director of CBS Radio Network, for its college football coverage.
  5. Scully impressed Barber with his coverage of a November 1949 University of Maryland versus Boston University football game from frigid Fenway Park in Boston, despite having to do so from the stadium roof. Expecting an enclosed press box, Scully had left his coat and gloves at his hotel, but never mentioned his discomfort on the air.
  6. In 1950, he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers and became popular for his unbiased narration style. He even went with the team when they moved to Los Angeles.
  7. Scully spent 64 years of his life (until 2016) as an announcer for the Dodgers. It is considered the longest tenure of any broadcaster for a single team in the history of professional sports. It is also the second longest tenure of any employee for the Dodgers.
  8. Scully has received several accolades, including the Ford Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1995, he was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame. Scully was also named as the National Sportscaster of the Year by National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association for three years. He was named Californian Sports Broadcaster of the year 32 times and also received a Life Achievement Emmy Award.
  9. He married Joan Crawford in 1958, but she died of an accidental medical overdose when the couple was in their fifteenth year of marriage; their son was later killed in a helicopter crash.
  10. His net worth is estimated to be $5 million.
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