Vin Scully says he won’t call playoff games

Vin Scully said in his clearest terms yet that he will not call any Dodgers playoff games in 2016, per Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times.

Instead, Scully plans for the final broadcast of his Hall of Fame 67-year career to be the Dodgers’ regular season finale on Sunday, October 3 in San Francisco against the Giants. Per Shaikin:

“Otherwise, I’d be saying goodbye like in grand opera, where you say goodbye 12 different times,” Scully told The Times.

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Said Scully: “I’m going to say goodbye at Dodger Stadium the last game with Colorado. I will say goodbye in San Francisco. And then that will be it.”

In previous years, Scully would call Dodgers postseason games on radio, splitting duties in recent seasons with Charley Steiner and Rick Monday. Scully would call innings 1-3 and from the seventh through the end of the game, with Steiner and Monday calling innings 4-6.

The date of the Dodgers’ regular season finale has some significance for Scully, who grew up a New York Giants fan. Oct. 2 is the 80th anniversary of Game 2 of the 1936 World Series, when Scully, then nearly two months from his ninth birthday, became a Giants fan after noticing they lost to the Yankees by the lopsided score of 18-4.

Back at FanFest in January at Dodger Stadium, Scully dropped hints that he might not call postseason games, though not in as certain terms as today.

"Rick and Charley do such a great job all year on radio. I feel like it's unfair that suddenly it's the playoffs and I do six of the nine innings,” Scully said in January. “Maybe, because it will be the last year, I might do playoffs but I don't think I'd do the World Series.”

Scully’s decision means there are only 10 games remaining in his broadcast career — Sept. 20-22 against the Giants, Sept. 23-26 against the Rockies, then Sept. 30-Oct. 2 on the road in San Francisco against the Giants.