Vin Scully Pays Tribute to Fellow Broadcast Legend John Madden

Scully teamed up with Madden to call NFL games for a short time in 1981.

Along with his impressive coaching career and his lasting impact as the namesake of the Madden NFL video game franchise, John Madden is one of the most beloved broadcaster in football history. During his career, Madden, who died on Tuesday at the age of 85, earned the respect and admiration of baseball broadcasting legend Vin Scully.

The two crossed paths professionally 40 years ago, when Scully and Madden were briefly paired up for CBS’s NFL broadcasts. On Tuesday night, after Madden’s death, Scully took to Twitter to pay his respects to the football icon.

I was saddened to hear about the passing of John Madden, at age 85. One the all-time greats, he showed me the ropes during our brief football partnership. He was always kind and delightful. He can now join his former partner, Pat Summerall, in calling Super Bowls in heaven.

— Vin Scully (@TheVinScully) December 29, 2021

Madden was famously paired with Pat Summerall for 22 years, starting in 1981. If CBS Sports president VanGordon Sauter had his way, however, it would have been Scully, the longtime Dodgers broadcaster, who would have been joined Madden for all of those years. Executive producer Terry O'Neil favored Summerall.

The Dallas Morning News recapped how that fateful decision played out. After four games with Madden and Summerall and four with Madden and Scully, Summerall ultimately got the nod.

Unable to agree, Mr. O’Neil and Mr. Sauter compromised. They agreed that Mr. Madden would work with Mr. Scully for the first four games of the 1981 season, while Mr. Summerall worked with Hank Stram. They then would swap partners for the next four.

On the Monday after the eighth week, Mr. O’Neil, Mr. Sauter and three other executives convened in the CBS dining room to pick a winner.

The vote was 4-to-1 to pair Mr. Madden with Mr. Summerall.

The lone dissenter was Mr. Sauter, who had the authority to make the ultimate decision. Unable to dissuade the others, Mr. Sauter banged his fist on the table and shouted, “OK, you guys want Summerall, you can have him.”

Scully, 94, would leave CBS Sports for NBC Sports in 1983, serving as the network's lead play-by-play broadcaster through 1989. He most notably served as the play-by-play voice of the Dodgers, in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, from 1950 until his retirement in 2016.

Scully was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame as winner of the Ford Frick Award for excellence in broadcasting in 1982. Madden was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006.