Photograph by Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times
Aug. 25, 1983: Jerry Doggett in the broadcasting booth. He did not want to be photographed calling a game.
Jerry Doggett spent more than 30 years happily in Vin Scully’s shadow. He came with Scully to Los Angeles when the Dodgers moved west and remained his broadcast partner until retiring in 1987.
“This year without a doubt has been one of the most wonderful years of our lives,” Doggett wrote in The Times’ radio column about living in California. Doggett was pinch-hitting for the vacationing Don Page.
Generations of baseball fans who grew up in Southern California can remember games or calls made by Scully. Not so much with Doggett, who gave Scully a break of two during the game in a solid if unremarkable manner. “He never complained about not getting more of the limelight, he never showed any ego or any of that baloney. Jerry Doggett was just a terrific guy and I will miss him forever,” Scully told The Times’ Larry Stewart when Doggett died at age 80 in 1997. –Keith Thursby
Here’s a rarity–the ninth inning of a Dodger no-hitter not called by Scully. Doggett did the play-by-play for Sal Maglie’s gem in 1956. Scully was also on the broadcast and wrapped up the game. [Gosh, look who picked up a photo from the Daily Mirror! Mr. Doug Miles–lrh]
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“This year without a doubt has been one of the most wonderful years of our lives,” Doggett wrote in The Times’ radio column about living in California. Doggett was pinch-hitting for the vacationing Don Page.
Being the number-two guy in the booth is never easy, especially if the top man is exceedingly popular. But it can be a wonderful training ground, and indeed virtually all the great announcers in baseball spent some time in that role. The late Harry Kalas spent six years as the second announcer in Houston before his iconic run in Philadelphia. In fact, Vin Scully and Ernie Harwell were number-two guys in New York in the early fifties — Scully with Brooklyn, of course, and Harwell with the Giants, as respective understudies to Red Barber and Russ Hodges. The early fifties must have been nirvana for New York baseball fans! (At the same time, Mel Allen’s partner in the Yankees booth was Jim Woods, a solid broadcaster who eventually did similar work for Bob Prince in Pittsburgh.)
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