Pull Up a Chair: The Vin Scully Story

by Curt Smith

In 1950, Vin Scully broadcast his first major league baseball game for the then–Brooklyn Dodgers. Nearly sixty years later he still invites a listener to “pull up a chair,” completing a record fifty-ninth consecutive year of play-by-play. Recruited and mentored by the legendary Red Barber, the New York–born Scully moved with the Dodgers to Los Angeles in early 1958. His instantly recognizable voice has described players from Duke Snider to Orel Hershiser to Manny Ramirez, with hundreds in between.At one time or another, Scully has aired NBC Television’s Game of the Week, twelve All-Star Games, eighteen no-hitters, twenty-five World Series, and network football, golf, and tennis. He has made every sportscasting Hall of Fame; received a Lifetime Emmy Achievement award and a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; and been voted “most memorable [L.A. Dodgers] franchise personality.” In 2000, the American Sportscasters Association named Scully the Sportscaster of the 20th Century.The first biography of Vin Scully is long overdue. Curt Smith―to USA Today , “The voice of authority on baseball broadcasting”―is the ideal man to write it. Scully opens each broadcast by wishing listeners, “A very pleasant good afternoon.” Pull Up a Chair will provide a reader with the same.

Genres: Baseball, Biography, Sports, History, Audiobook, Nonfiction

264 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2008

Reviews

[Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book, i really did. Having been one of those kids who grew up in the late 70s and early 80s listening to Vin after bedtime on a transistor radio under the covers, and still enjoying every turn of phrase in his broadcasts, I really hope that I was hitting the jackpot.

But the thing is, this is NOT a biography. It does have some basic background info about Vin and his upbringing, but at its core it really is just a sort of summary of events and the role of the broadcast announcer in baseball in general, with Vin inserted where applicable.

In addition to that, Curt Smith's writing style doesnt seem appropriate for communicating this kind of information. A fine storyteller in a very disjointed, stream-of-conscious way, when this material calls for structured analysis.

Still, some very interesting stories, and always a pleasure to learn more about Vin. Just don't go into it expecting what the title leads you to believe.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a huge Vin Scully fan, but I found this biography deeply unsatisfying. The author did little but quote from Scully and describe the various Dodger seasons which he announced. I got very little insight into Scully the man, and I found the style of the book disjointed and not a little irritating.

[Sue Kliewer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of the most poorly written books I've ever read. It is one of the rare books I didn't finish, even though I admire Vin and still listen to him whenever he announces a Dodger game.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The consensus is not wrong about this book. The longer I stuck through the more I was disappointed in it, even though it did fill some gaps in my baseball history. Some of it is the purple prose, which gets in the way of what Vin Scully did so well, to the point that while listening to the audiobook, I sometimes got confused about whether Vin or the author was speaking. You can read Wikipedia and get most of the facts and none of the unnecessary jabs against Scully's contemporaries, and now a plethora of Scully's more memorable moments are on YouTube, so you can experience Buckner's gaffe, Gibson's clutch homer, or Koufax's perfect game among countless others without the hand holding.

Much of the problem of this book was that it was written ten years too early. An entirely new generation of fans grew to love Scully through MLB Network and elsewhere, and it's awkward that the narrative stops just before the McCourt divorce which plunged the Dodgers into bankruptcy. More importantly, Scully spent another eight seasons behind the microphone before finally retiring. Curt Smith obviously loves Vin Scully and the broadcasting profession as a whole, but someone needs to come along and show in a clearer, more detailed manner why Vin Scully matters. Until then, Scully's body of work should speak for itself.

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is enjoyable, especially if you are a Dodger baseball fan, however, the author's style is somewhat fragmented and hard to follow which detracts from the overall enjoyment of the book which is well-researched and very factual.

[Caitlin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m a die-hard Dodger fan and grew up listening to Vin Scully - he is the soundtrack of most of my life.
I want to like this book but it’s like reading a novel written by a 2 year old. Nothing makes sense; it’s poorly written.
This book is a slap in the face to Vin’s legacy.
Hopefully a proper book about Vin comes out soon.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grew up listening to the Yankees. In 1966, we had "Scooter," Joe, Jerry Coleman and a guy named Red Barber. Three of the four have won the Baseball Hall of Fame's Ford Frick Award for baseball broadcasting -- and Rizzuto's in the Hall as a player.

So hearing about some guy named Vin Scully with the Dodgers was foreign to me as a 10 year old. It was later in life that I discovered Scully while watching the Game of the Week, as well as NFL football and other sporting ventures he broadcast. He'd been with the Dodgers from Brooklyn in 1950, moved to Los Angeles when the team vacated Ebbets Field and had 16 years with team when started following broadcasters.

He's still there, and this book explains why Vin Scully has survived big network TV, owner changes, and the glitz of big money sports to simply be the down-to-earth voice millions have heard through the years of Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, Fernando Valenzuela, Kirk Gibson and Manny Ramirez. Curt Smith does a tremendous job in telling readers who Vin Scully is and how he's impacted generations of baseball (and sports) fans nationwide. In the history of baseball announcers -- with the names of Harwell, Carey, Thompson, Allen and Barber in its company -- Scully may be the best -- 61 years and still going strong.

[Ak-75 Harris · Rating 1 out of 5]

I made it about 25 pages in before skipping ahead some and then coming here and elsewhere to see if others shared my conclusion that this is a truly horrible book. Turns out most people who had the misfortune to cross paths with this alleged book agree.

Several times I had to re-read sentences that were too disjointed to be understood before moving on in confusion. At a more thematic level, this isn't a conventional biography, or even an unconventional one. As a professional writer and editor myself, I'm gobsmacked that this Curt Smith fellow snuck this past enough people to get it printed. Sad that such a great storyteller as Scully has his name forever yoked in print to such a pitiable hack.

[Mickey Mantle · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author is more a cheerleader for MLB than a biographer. You read the book and have very little knowledge of Scully as a person. Portrayed as a robot. Smith comes off as a total sentimentalist, babbling on endlessly about the MLB Game of the Week as if it is important in 2014. Smith just can't come to grips with the fact that the N.F.L. has swamped M.L.B. in popularity. Smith refuses to take into account societal changes and can't fathom the idea of anybody under the age of 40 who is not incarcerated sitting in front of a TV set on a sunny Saturday and watching 7 pitching changes and 4 hour dull baseball games.

[Dale Stonehouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subject should have made this a great book, and for a certain mindset I'm sure it was. But the emotionality was not there for me, perhaps because the sound of Scully cannot be described in words on paper. I still recommend the book about an American institution now gone global due to technology.

[Damon Sunde · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could have been so much better had it not been written by "The Expert". Very disjointed with flowery language not really befitting the subject matter ... an accomplished author that believes himself capable of being the star.

[Leo · Rating 2 out of 5]

A great subject but just poor writing. A Vin Scully biography deserves a top notch read, but this was more like a fan who was trying to jam all his favorite stories into one scattered thought.

[RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN · Rating 1 out of 5]

RICK “SHAQ” GOLDSTEIN SAYS: “VINNIE IS THE GREATEST OF ALL-TIME… HE DESERVES A BETTER STORY THAN THIS MISTAKE LADEN TRAVESTY.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Vince Scully the legendary Hall Of Fame announcer for the Brooklyn and now Los Angeles Dodgers… is nearing his sixtieth complete year of broadcasting. I happen to have been blessed to listen to Vinnie as a young boy in New York… and then miraculously… our family moved to Los Angeles the same exact year as the Dodgers… so I have never missed a single year of Vinnie’s poetic… magical… announcing of our families beloved Dodgers from the time I was old enough to know the difference between a ball and a strike… till today… when as a Grandfather I listen to Vinnie with my grandchild. This is a book that is long over do… but unfortunately… I’m sad to say it is disappointing for a number of reasons.

Since Vinnie did not participate in the development of this book the author depends entirely on historical quotes… and on countless occasions many sentences and paragraphs include numerous quotes from multiple individuals… and many times the same section has more than one quote from the same individual… IN NO LOGICAL SEQUENCE… and the reader becomes dumbfounded as to which quotes came from which individuals. At times such as these the flow of the story comes to a standstill as the reader literally scratches his head and tries to figure out who said what.

There are also numerous typos and/or sentences that just don’t make sense. Such as page forty-eight when the author writes: “IT WOULDN’T HAVE GONE THROUGH THE (BROOKLYN) FENCE.” “MUSED CAMPANELLA. MIGHT HAVE GONE THROUGH IT, THOUGH.” Huh?? Or on page ninety-nine “THE KID YOU’D LIKE TO SEE RINGING YOUR DOORBELL WHEN YOU DAUGHTER STARTS DATING.” There are also important historical mistakes such as the stating that in 1966 Koufax won his third straight Cy Young award. That is incorrect. Koufax didn’t win three straight awards… though he did win the Cy Young in 1963,1965 and 1966. The reader is also let down when the most famous baseball fight in modern history involving the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers when Giant Juan Marichal hit Dodger catcher Johnnie Roseboro over the head with a bat is discussed, and none of the prior game detail that culminated in this horrendous event is covered.

When the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles Vinnie and the transistor radio is what fueled the Dodgers growth in popularity as much as the team itself. Every member of the family from Grandma and Grandpa… to Mom and Dad… and the kids… all knew Vince Scully simply… and lovingly… by one word “VINNIE”. He was a one name superstar way before Madonna… Britney… Magic and Michael. Vinnie was voted *THE MOST MEMORABLE PERSONALITY IN THE HISTORY OF THE LOS ANGELES DODGER FRANCHISE!* This book chronologically covers all the bases in Scully’s career… but it is not an easy read due to the sloppiness mentioned earlier. What may or may not be an interesting coincidence… is that this book and the last shoddy baseball book I read… were both mysteriously delivered a couple of weeks “earlier” than the original release dates that had been posted on-line for months. Perhaps the publishers cut down on quality control to simply get the books out quicker than originally scheduled for some unknown marketing reasons. If so… I hope they learned their lesson.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the story

Took me a long time to finish because I kept getting “pulled out” of the book. Primary it was because I was listening on audible, which normally I find very enjoyable. In this particular case the reader was fine, 90% of it was great. But when he would get to the best parts – a direct quote of something Vince and said on air. And it would fall very very flat. Not the readers fault. He just isn’t Vince. Vince has that voice, magic, charm, cadence, nostalgia. An absolute master at work. So when those moments would come up they would leave me wanting and often off to you tube to get lost in a deep dive of listening to Vince as I went about my day (digression – but “in my heaven” how great would it be to have Vince be the narrator of your life when you looked back on it all. “alan was disappointed at the time, but little did he know this setback would lead to the greatest comeback sotry of them all!!!!)
So I lost track with this book several times but always enjoyed stepping back into the world and the great story.


and all this praise from a lifelong GIANTS fan. Doesn’t matter – in my opinion Vince isn’t just the greatest announcer of any sport of all time. He is one of the top 10 most important figures in all of baseball history.

[Kurt]

I have rarely been as furious as I became attempting to read this book. For virtually the entirety of my 58 years, I saw Vin Scully as the best of what baseball had given the world. His warm and welcoming voice lent beauty and grace to what essentially is young men playing in the yard. His recent passing sent a fissure of pain through me reaching all the way back to my early childhood. This book was given to me as a salve for that loss. Unfortunately, I am too angry to finish it...or fortunately my anger will save me from having to read the rest. This is not a biography, more a tornado of bombast and purple prose. I occasionally glimpsed Vin Scully as if on a busy street only to lose him again in the milling crowd. Events are thrown on the page as if notes for actual writing and the focus jumps around so much I often didn't know what I was reading about or why. I wanted to throw the book across the room but I can't do that to a book. Thankfully my wife did it for me.

[Melanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really didn't know much about Vin Scully but the name going into the book, and know slightly more. There is a bit of Scully, a bit about radio/broadcasting, more about baseball in general and quite a bit about the Dodgers. He also brought in former President Bush which really didn't seem necessary except for the fact the author also wrote a book on him.

How did this book find me? It was suggested by Audible and in their Audible Plus catalog until October 3o, 2024. I'm glad I followed my gut a push the book up my list because it isn't available at my library and not worth the money I would have spent on it.

[Stephen Dittmore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Smith’s writing is so forced and uneven it makes reading this difficult. But, it is about Vin Scully and that alone makes this worthy of being read. I don’t know how a person would write a biography of the private Scully but this is not it. It is a mostly a collection of how Scully announced certain events. And while that is worth preserving, it should be done with the same eloquence as the original spoken words were. RIP Vin… you will always be the voice of my childhood.

[Christopher Huezo · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a sports fan, a fan of the Dodgers and growing up with Vin Scully this book seemed to have everything I wanted to read about. Unfortunately, it did not deliver. The sporadic sentences with quotes that seemed to be blended in at random that had nothing to do with Vin made it like pulling teeth to finish reading. I couldn’t go past two pages without getting discouraged to continue on. Definitely save your time and money and get yourself something else.

[Steve Paulson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This should be called the Story of the Dodgers with a focus on Vin Scully. The audiobook can be very confusing to listen to. It seems a lot of necessary punctuation or layout is missing. It’s not really the story of Vin Scully, the greatest sports announcer ever, but it is an interesting book about the history of baseball, the Dodgers, announcers and Vin.

[Chris Schaffer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I grew up watching Vin Scully on the NBC GOTW. Couldn’t get much better than him and Garagiola or Costas and Kubek. That said, I don’t know if this book was such a great idea cause it wasn’t really that interesting and it jumped around like crazy. The sections on his early years and first years broadcasting were pretty good.

[Peter Gascoyne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Grew up listening to Vin Scully call the Dodger games, and was so disappointed so little of his life is included here. The index has literally over 1,000 names, so lots and lots of tidbits. His family, how he spent the 3-4 hours before calling a game, his ties with Jerry Doggett: nothing; all lost in a sea of cleverness and dyslexic prose.

[Scott Vout · Rating 3 out of 5]

A legend in the sports broadcasting business.

I found this an interesting read to learn about a man i have listened to for many many years and how he managed to be in the business longer then i have been alive.

enjoyable.

[Jim Leon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I expected more from this book considering the author wrote Voices of the Game. I'm about halfway through it and find it hard to follow and very fragmented. This one is going in the box to be given away and I'm a big fan of Vin Scully.

[Chris Montbriand · Rating 1 out of 5]

More disjointed ramblings that use baseball stories in attempt to show off a large vocabulary than a book about Vin Scully. Not really worth my time. I would love to read a true biography of the great man. This wasn't it at all.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a huge Scully fan, this was a disappointing read. Many times the storyline jumped back and forth from one story to the next, forward and backward in time, to an excess. Reading felt like listening to my granddad start a story, then begin rambling on about something else.

[Kyler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fascinating to read about the greatest announcer to ever call a game but the writing style is really hard to get through. It’s almost as though the author is being paid by the word as he uses ten words where two would have been enough. Vin Scully was a national treasure, Curt smith is not.

[Hapzydeco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every fan should read at least one baseball book a summer, may I suggest this one.

[GQR · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great history, and nostalgic, for this Southern Cal native, but at times, writing style is ponderous. Tough to absorb so much statistical detail.

[James Bechtel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like all good Los Angelenos I was raised on the voice of Vin Scully.

[Matt Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the kind of bio I was expecting, kind of disappointing as I’m a Scully fan. Very choppy writing style, makes listening difficult.