After Rough Week, Vin Scully Voices Umpire Appreciation

After a rough week for umpires, Hall of Famer Vin Scully gave the boys in black a much-needed reprieve, showing his genuine appreciation and thanks while describing the seemingly simple act of an MLB umpire calling a play in real-time. (Video: Simply put, when they were down, broadcaster Scully picked them up.)

Hall of Famer Vin Scully shows umps some love.

With none out and one on in the top of the 7th inning of the Marlins-Dodgers game, Marlins batter Chris Coghlan hit a 0-1 fastball from Dodgers pitcher Ronald Belisario to deep left-center field where it struck near the top of the wall at the padding and caromed back toward center fielder Matt Kemp. Initially ruled a live ball (no HR) by 3B Umpire Phil Cuzzi—2B Umpire Chris Guccione positioned inside the infield with a runner aboard—the duo along with 1B Umpire Ron Kulpa and crew chief and HP Umpire Tom Hallion conferred after a brief appeal from rookie Marlins Manager Mike Redmond, electing to consult instant replay video review for the first time in Dodger Stadium history.

While the umpires watched the replays, Scully heaped praise on baseball's arbiters. Some of the classic snippets of Scully's timeless storytelling include:

On the initial call of keeping the ball alive and in play: "The umpires had to call that in real-time...We can have the ability I think to slow it down and take a look...I mean, they had one fraction of a second."

On the decision to consult instant replay: "They're going to go and look at it, which is a smart idea. So that's a heads up play by the umpires. First you get the call correct. I think if Mike Redmond had a chance to look at it as we have, you could see the ball hitting the top of the fence but coming back."

On the call and process: "Now, isn't that great? And they didn't have all of this equipment, they just made the call. And they were absolutely 100% correct."

On the final ruling to affirm the original call, resulting in a double for Coghlan: "Here come the umpires. It's going to be a double, and rightly called. It wasn't a bad idea for Mike Redmond to go out and appeal, but that's all it did. It hit the top of the pad and came back into play."