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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 inst...more
Hardcover, 264 pages
Published
May 31st 2009
by Potomac Books
(first published April 2008)
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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 br...more
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 br...more
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 br...more
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 br...more
Although a Giants fan, when I lived in Santa Barbara where I attended graduate school I listened to the Dodgers' and Angels' broadcasts. I quickly came to recognize that Dodger announcer Vin Scully was the best baseball broadcaster I had ever heard; I am still of that opinion. Curt Smith's book is really a history of baseball broadcasting since about 1950 with Scully as the central character, but he is able to communicate the skill of Scully's language through numerous quotations from his play...more
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.
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.
I would love to read a well written biography of this great man.
This book is not it.
A rehash of publicly available sources. Lots of generalizations and repeated anecdotal stories. Very disappointing.
This book is not it.
A rehash of publicly available sources. Lots of generalizations and repeated anecdotal stories. Very disappointing.
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.
On the off-chance the author's mother is reading this, I am very glad somebody writes books about baseball broadcasters.
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"Riveting and exquisitely reported" - Washington Post
Listen to Pull Up a Chair on your smartphone.
Listen to Pull Up a Chair on your smartphone.
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.
Looking forward to its arrival ...
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