Fordham University remembered alumnus and honorary doctorate recipient Vincent Edward Scully, better known to millions of baseball fans as Vin, on Wednesday with a memorial Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral celebrated by Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

Scully was best known as the broadcast voice of the Major League Baseball Dodgers, starting with the team while they were still in Brooklyn in 1950, then following them to Los Angeles, where he called their games for an unbelievable 67 seasons. Scully retired in 2016, and died in August 2022 at age 94.

A Bronx native, Scully graduated from Fordham Preparatory School (Fordham Prep) and served briefly in the U.S. Navy before enrolling at then-Fordham College at Rose Hill. He first learned the broadcasting trade at WFUV, the Fordham public media station founded during his undergraduate years, according to the Mass’s program. 

Scully’s honors include a posthumous Fordham Founder’s Award, induction into the broadcasters’ wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the United States’ highest civilian honor — presented by President Barack Obama in 2016. 

“Faith was the bedrock of Vin Scully’s life. According to his family, ‘He never missed an opportunity to owe every blessing and success to the Grace of God,” the Mass program said.

“We pray in gratitude for [Vin] and for his long life. Do we ever pray in gratitude for his deep  Catholic faith, and the inspiration he gave to so many,” said Cardinal Timothy Dolan, as he welcomed the Scully family and guests from Fordham University at the start of Mass.

“We Jesuits owe Bridget [Scully’s mother] for giving Fordham Prep and Fordham University one of the best students we have ever had,” said Father Joseph P. Parkes, S.J., who served as the Mass’s homilist, who recalled that Scully’s mother wheeled him through Fordham campus as a baby and decided she would send her son there to be educated. Fr. Parkes is a former president of Fordham Prep and a member of Fordham Prep’s Hall of Honor.