Scully’s 10 greatest calls

LOS ANGELES — Vin Scully’s legacy may be his calls of huge, dramatic moments — Hank Aaron’s 715th home run, Sandy Koufax’s perfect game, Kirk Gibson’s World Series moment.

Scully captured them all eloquently, describing the play and then stepping away from the microphone to allow listeners and viewers to absorb the sights and sounds.

In fact, near the end of Clayton Kershaw’s 2014 no-hitter, Scully said:

“Now it’s his moment. What he does with it after 101 pitches, we are delighted to share the moment with you. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to sit back and watch it with you.”

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How perfect is that? Years from now when baseball fans and linguists and broadcasting students study this man, these big moments of history and anticipation surely will define Scully.

No artist could paint a more perfect picture than Scully captured at the end of Koufax’s 1965 masterpiece. Or the words he used as Aaron rounded the bases after his 715th home run in 1974.

Still, to the millions of Dodgers fans who doted on his every word, the real joy of Vin Scully will always be found in the day-to-day work, the regular games where no history was made, no record shattered.

In those games, Scully was at his best — warm and thoughtful, kind and funny, a perfect companion in cars, living rooms and box seats.

Scully’s way of seamlessly weaving stories through every broadcast was unlike any other sportscaster, maybe ever.

Topics? He had a few.

One night, it was the history of Friday the 13th when discussing ballplayer superstitions.

Or the dirt on a baseball diamond, where it came from and why it was special.

Some dirt history, too.

Think it wasn’t interesting? Guess again.

Scully’s departure from the Dodgers broadcasting booth at the end of this, his 67th and final season, will last in our hearts and minds forever.

He elevated the broadcasting of baseball games to an art form. All of us have our favorite moments.

Here are 10 that stand the test of time:

1. Koufax’s perfect game “So Harvey Kuenn is batting for Bob Hendley. The time on the scoreboard is 9:44. The date, September the 9th, 1965, and Koufax working on veteran Harvey Kuenn.

“Sandy into his windup and the pitch, a fastball for a strike! He has struck out, by the way, five consecutive batters, and that’s gone unnoticed.

“Sandy ready, and the strike 1 pitch: very high, and he lost his hat. He really forced that one. That’s only the second time tonight where I have had the feeling that Sandy threw instead of pitched, trying to get that little extra, and that time he tried so hard his hat fell off — he took an extremely long stride to the plate — and Torborg had to go up to get it.

“One and one to Harvey …

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