Arguably the greatest play-by-play announcer to ever live, Vin Scully IS the Dodgers. For more than a half century, his eloquent voice and vocabulary has entertained baseball fans across the world.

�It has been my life you know,� Scully said. �I still get goose bumps, you know. I try the best as I can to call whatever it is as quickly and accurately as possible and then shut up and get out of the way. I have always been � since a small child � a fan of the roar of the crowd. And I can sit there and the crowd is screaming and I�m just covered with goose bumps. I just love it.�

It�s been quite a ride for Scully, who joined Hall of Fame announcer Red Barber and Connie Desmond as part of the Brooklyn Dodgers� broadcast team in 1950, just one year after graduating from Fordham University in the Bronx.

With 53 years of broadcasting to his belt, it�s hard to answer the question: �What are your three greatest broadcasting moments?�

�I mean there have been, I mean, you just can�t count when you�ve been around a long time,� Scully tried to explain. �I have one feeling and that�s thank God. That�s my overwhelming feeling: gratitude, thanksgiving. I really don�t try to take pride. I really try to realize that whatever I have is God-given and I could lose it � like that � in one second.�

The humble Hall of Fame play-by-play man, voted �Sportscaster of the 20th Century,� said one of his top three memorable moments came just one year after he entered the broadcast booth with the Dodgers.

�I wasn�t on the air but Bobby Thomson�s home run in 1951 is probably the most remembered home run for such a long period of time. That was really big. Luckily, I didn�t have to get involved with that one!� Scully quipped. �Thank goodness Red Barber was broadcasting and I was standing behind him!�

Thomson�s dramatic �shot heard �round the world� three-run homer on October 3 of that year of course lifted the New York Giants to the National League pennant over the Brooklyn Dodgers.

�But there are an awful lot of individual performances,� Scully commented. �Sandy Koufax�s perfect game, (Koufax�s) four no-hitters, (Don) Drysdale�s and Orel Hershiser�s string of zeroes. I mean, there have just (been) a ton.�

�I mean Don Larsen pitched a perfect game in the World Series (in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series) � it can�t get any better than that!� Scully continued. �You talk about a no-hitter, that�s great. You talk about a perfect game, that�s incredible. Then make it a perfect game in the World Series, I mean that had to be memorable, especially (because) he was a fellow who was at the end of his career and never considered a great force. I mean he was a pretty good pitcher. It wasn�t one moment, it was the whole game, but in retrospect looking back that was a big surprise, you know.�

All told, Scully has called 18 no-hitters and two other perfect games, Koufax in 1965 and Denny Martinez 26 years later, in 1991. In addition to Drysdale�s 58.2 scoreless innings streak in 1968 and Hershiser�s 59 scoreless innings run in 1988, the legendary play-by-play man also was at the mike for Henry Aaron�s 715th career home run that broke Babe Ruth�s major league record. He has also called 25 World Series and 12 All-Star Games.

So with all these incredible memories and milestones, what are Scully�s two other most memorable moments? �The big ones,� as he likes to call them?

�In 1955 when Johnny Podres beat the Yankees in the World Series and it turned out to be the first and only Brooklyn Dodgers championship, that was memorable because I understood the frustration of the team,� Scully answered in describing his second of three most memorable moments. �It was monumental in the Borough of Brooklyn. I mean, it clearly was.�

Podres� shutout of the Bronx Bombers in Game 7 of the 1955 Fall Classic was truly original. So too was an incredibly dramatic event some 33 years later on the other side of the U.S. in Los Angeles, California.