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On Sunday afternoon, during the season finale against the rival Giants in San Francisco, Vin Scully signed off for the last time in a storied 67-year career. "I have said enough for a lifetime, and for the last time, I wish you a good afternoon," he said, as men across the country tried to hide the fact they were weeping over his departure.
After nearly seven decades in the booth, Scully will now be able to fulfill a fantasy many dream about every day at their desks: saying goodbye to their employer forever. Vin Scully will no longer be there for the Dodgers on game day—does this also mean he will root for the Giants again?
This may sound blasphemous, but even Scully admits his love of baseball started with the Giants. As he has said many times through the years, including during yesterday's game, he remembers being a young boy walking past a Chinese laundry in Bronx and seeing a box score posted on their window: New York Yankees 18, New York Giants 4. "As a little kid, my first thought was, 'Oh, those poor Giants,'" he told the L.A. Times.
That game, by the way, was on October 2, 1936. Eighty years later to the day, Scully would call his final game. (It was also Game 2 of the World Series, and the Yankees would win the series.)
(via @ChadMoriyama)Scully's childhood idol was the one and only Mel Ott, the Hall of Fame right fielder for the New York Giants. As a parting gift, the Giants presented Scully with a framed photograph of Ott and a ticket stub to the game where he hit his 500th home run. "He would raise that right leg and hit over 500 home runs," Scully said yesterday, describing Ott's batting stance. "I tried to do it and something happened when I swung the bat, that did not do what Mel Ott did."
Scully was also presented with a plaque that now hangs in the visitor's broadcast booth, commemorating the over 9,000 games that he announced in his career. Emceeing the ceremony was Giants CEO Larry Baer and Giants legend Willie Mays, who Scully described as, "My favorite player, and the best one."
Forever enshrined in the visiting TV broadcast booth. #ThankYouVin pic.twitter.com/vaXZkeuLfJ
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) October 2, 2016
But the most damning piece of evidence that Scully might switch back to his childhood fandom? Let Scully's words explain: "I can root for them now when they go to New York to play the Mets! Darn right!" (The Giants play the Mets on Wednesday night in the National League Wild Card Game.)
Darn right! You can parse those words however you want—he "can" root for now as opposed to "will"—but the emphatic "Darn right" speaks volumes.
Whichever loyalty Scully now holds, we wish him a happy retirement.
Update [4:20]: LAist reached out to the Dodgers to see if they or the Vin Scully himself had any comment on Scully's retirement loyalties, and spokesman Steve Brener said, "Vin said he would root for the Dodgers and also pull for the Giants against the Mets this week."
