Post by bossradio93 on Oct 24, 2003 22:44:44 GMT -5
Scully's World Changed in '53
By Larry Stewart, LA Times, 10.24.03
This year not only marks the 100th anniversary of the World Series, it also marks the 50th anniversary of Vin Scully's first World Series.
In 1953, the Brooklyn Dodgers played the New York Yankees, and back then the participating teams' lead announcers worked the Series for network television. The Yankees' lead announcer was Mel Allen, the Dodgers' was Red Barber.
Sports broadcast historian David J. Halberstam of Florida, not to be confused with the Pulitzer Prize-winning author from Boston, said Barber got into a salary dispute with the sponsor, Gillette, who paid the announcers.
Barber wanted more than the $200 a game he was to be paid, according to Halberstam. No. 2 Dodger announcer Connie Desmond also declined to work the Series.
So Dodger owner Walter O'Malley recommended that 25-year-old Scully work with Allen.
"The first thing I did was check with Red and Connie to see if it was OK with them," Scully said Thursday. "I told them I was just a kid and could wait, that I wasn't going to do it without their blessing.
"They said, 'If you don't do it, then somebody else will.' "
Scully, who ended up announcing 22 World Series for television, radio or a combination of the two, at the time had done little television. Now he was going to be speaking to a national television audience — on the World Series, no less.
"I tried to play it pretty cool," he said. "I was living at home with my mother and father and sister, and before the first game I sat down with them for breakfast as if it was just another day. Then I went upstairs and [lost] my entire breakfast."[/i]
*
Source: Los Angeles Radio People
By Larry Stewart, LA Times, 10.24.03
This year not only marks the 100th anniversary of the World Series, it also marks the 50th anniversary of Vin Scully's first World Series.
In 1953, the Brooklyn Dodgers played the New York Yankees, and back then the participating teams' lead announcers worked the Series for network television. The Yankees' lead announcer was Mel Allen, the Dodgers' was Red Barber.
Sports broadcast historian David J. Halberstam of Florida, not to be confused with the Pulitzer Prize-winning author from Boston, said Barber got into a salary dispute with the sponsor, Gillette, who paid the announcers.
Barber wanted more than the $200 a game he was to be paid, according to Halberstam. No. 2 Dodger announcer Connie Desmond also declined to work the Series.
So Dodger owner Walter O'Malley recommended that 25-year-old Scully work with Allen.
"The first thing I did was check with Red and Connie to see if it was OK with them," Scully said Thursday. "I told them I was just a kid and could wait, that I wasn't going to do it without their blessing.
"They said, 'If you don't do it, then somebody else will.' "
Scully, who ended up announcing 22 World Series for television, radio or a combination of the two, at the time had done little television. Now he was going to be speaking to a national television audience — on the World Series, no less.
"I tried to play it pretty cool," he said. "I was living at home with my mother and father and sister, and before the first game I sat down with them for breakfast as if it was just another day. Then I went upstairs and [lost] my entire breakfast."[/i]
*
Source: Los Angeles Radio People