it's time for vin scully quotes on baseball cards

a couple of months ago, i picked up some cards from 2024 topps finest. i don't know where people find this stuff these days - my lcs doesn't order it - but i am thankful that people do open and sell the singles online.  the cards that i targeted were from the "finest timelines" set, and a couple of them featured quotes from vin scully.

here's a sandy koufax card that celebrates his perfect game

koufax has just struck out harvey kuenn to end the game and is being hugged by ron fairly (great to see fairly on a modern day card!). the bottom of the card features part of scully's call of the performance. if you haven't listened to the 9th inning of the game, i encourage you to do so. "2 and 2 to harvey kuenn, one strike away. sandy into his windup; here's the pitch. swung on and missed! a perfect game!" chills.

scully's words appear on another card in the set - hank aaron's

vin said those words after aaron crossed the plate and made his 715th career home run official.  he began by saying "what a marvelous moment for baseball" and also included atlanta and the state of georgia before getting to the country and the world. i don't know that the word marvelous has been uttered on a baseball broadcast since, let alone three times. joe davis did throw out an "atrocious" during the world series which was pretty nice to hear, especially since it was in reference to the yankees' 5th inning defense in game 5.

as luck would have it, it was the dodgers against whom aaron hit his record setting home run (that's the back of joe ferguson's head there on the card), and so scully was there to make the call. i appreciate topps using a line from scully's call instead of milo hamilton's, although his call is great, too. "it's gone! it's 715! there's a new home run champion of all-time, and it's henry aaron!" again, chills. 

the third card i picked up from this set is a card featuring willie mays as he makes "the catch"

this one doesn't feature a quote from scully (who was a giants fan), but rather jack brickhouse whose incredulous call is used. this card, like all cards featuring the catch, goes in my "name/number on the back" collection. aaron's card is in that same collection, but i would have found a home for it regardless thanks to the appearance of scully's call. well done topps!