Vin Scully joins National Recording Registry, doesn’t plan to watch much opening day

A classic Vin Scully broadcast will be added to the National Recording Registry, the Library of Congress announced on Thursday. But news of another sort came when Scully was contacted by the Associated Press.

Scully, who retired at the end of the 2016 season after a record 67 seasons calling Dodgers games, was asked by the AP if he had any plans to watch opening day on Monday.

"It's a day game. I'll probably have things to do," Scully told the Associated Press. "I might catch a piece of it."

The Dodgers host the Padres at 1:10 p.m. PT on Monday at Dodger Stadium. Joe Davis will call the play-by-play on SportsNet LA, along with Orel Hershiser, Nomar Garciaparra and Alanna Rizzo on the broadcast.

For someone so involved in so many games, paying close attention and calling the play-by-play for nearly seven decades, it is understandably different to sit and watch a game as a fan, with no involvement. Scully explained to the AP:

"During the World Series back around '77 or '78, there was a game at Dodger Stadium with the Yankees, and I went to the game as a spectator. Now, I hadn't been as a spectator in a long, long time, and I felt somewhat restless that I wasn't broadcasting," Scully recalled Tuesday.

"I did not have the challenge of trying to describe, accurately and quickly, the way it should be done. I just sat there, and I was not happy, I'll be honest. So I realized that although I love the game, what I loved more was broadcasting it," he said.

The broadcast by Scully that will enter the National Recording Registry is a Sept. 8, 1957 game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants, the last home game at the Polo Grounds for the Giants before both teams moved out west before the 1958 season.

Scully’s call joins a rather eclectic list also joining the National Recording Registry, including the Eagles’ first ‘Greatest Hits’ album, NWA’s ‘Straight Outta Compton,’ Don McLean’s single ‘American Pie,’ and Richard Pryor’s 1978 comedy album ‘Wanted: Live in Concert.’