BASEBALL'S AMBASSADOR.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

He has been at it for 50 years, beginning in Brooklyn as a wet-behind-the-ears 21-year-old hoping just to get through a game without making a mistake. He has enjoyed the days of Robinson and Campanella, Koufax and Drysdale, reveled in Fernandomania and marveled at Kirk Gibson's World Series heroics. He has also endured the inevitable troughs, including this dismal Dodger season, a year that most diehard fans would like to strike from the books, not to mention their memories.

Through it all, Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully has maintained a passion for baseball that transcends the standings, the players and, yes, the ownership. He still gets goose bumps, still feels the butterflies, still likes nothing more than seeing a 6-4-3 double play turned with agility and precision.

Vin Scully still has a tremendous love for the game.

So when it came time to find a broadcaster to call the pivotal contest in his new baseball movie, ``For Love of the Game,'' Kevin Costner turned to Hall of Famer Scully, the only man he could see - and hear - in the booth.

``No one personifies the movie's title more than Vin,'' Costner says. ``He has been the voice of baseball for as long as I can remember.''

Adds the film's director (and devoted baseball fan) Sam Raimi: ``You can't help but fall in love with the guy. You trust Vin completely because he gives you a little piece of his heart every night. You know you can believe him. You feel like he's family, he's so familiar. In fact, there's no one I'd rather have tell me some bad news than Vin Scully.''

Scully has delivered more than his share of bad news to Dodger fans this season. Tom Hanks may have famously said in ``A League of Their Own'' that there's no crying in baseball, but Scully knows that's simply not true. He has seen ball players cry and he knows all the signs of sadness - the haunted looks, the dark circles under the eyes, the slumped figures at the lockers.

``I remember in 1982, Terry Forster giving up the home run to Joe Morgan on the last game of the season,'' Scully says of a game that cost the Dodgers the division title. ``And that hit just ruined him. It broke his heart. Terry was a big, emotional, warm-hearted guy and it just crushed him.''

Three years later, another victim (Tom Niedenfuer, who gave up a series-ending homer to St. Louis Cardinal slugger Jack Clark), another Dodger season ending in tears.

``(Dodger manager) Tommy (Lasorda) was devastated by that,'' Scully says. ``So don't let anyone tell you there's no crying in baseball, especially this time of year.''

``For Love of the Game'' has its share of tears, too, but not when Scully is on the screen. Scully plays himself, naturally (``It's about as much of an acting stretch as I'm capable of,'' he says with a wink), broadcasting a perfect game being thrown by an aging Detroit Tigers pitcher, Billy Chapel, portrayed by Costner. Scully was given a script, but was allowed to improvise. And improvise he did.

``He came up with 80 percent of his lines,'' Raimi says. ``I thought the screenwriter (Dana Stevens) might be upset, but she thought it was fantastic.''

Indeed, Scully delivers the best line in the movie, an end-of-the-game description so vivid and so perfect that long-time listeners will realize that it could have only come from him. Scully, modest to a fault, owns up to the authorship, but says ``it wasn't much.'' After all, since he knew the outcome of the movie's fictional game, he had time to think about what he was going to say beforehand.

``It's not like a real game where I'm bobbing and weaving,'' Scully says.

Pure Vin. And that's why most Dodger boosters love Scully more than any of the players he chronicles. (The fans in the mid-'70s named him the most memorable personality in L.A. Dodger history.) With Scully, what you hear is what you get. The warmth, the humor, the unaffected elegance often stand in stark contrast to the remote haughtiness of so many modern-day athletes.

Scully believes himself to be ``just a very ordinary man,'' which is a rather extraordinary statement coming from someone most people believe to be the voice of baseball, not to mention the voice of Los Angeles.

He has always been a straight shooter, calling the games ``right down the middle'' without favoritism. But Scully is also an optimist and prefers to celebrate the good than dwell on the disappointing. So when he's asked about a perceived lack of love for the game on the part of the modern-day player, Scully demurs. He doesn't want to make any broad generalizations. And then, typically, he launches into a story that restores your faith.

``We played Florida the other night and they brought in a relief pitcher who, at one time, was in our organization, Dennis Springer,'' Scully says. ``And Dennis Springer can't possibly be making a lot of money; he hasn't been that successful. But he spent eight years in the minor leagues. That's love. Rattling around in buses, eating on the run, playing for peanuts . . . and apparently he never wavered, but just kept plugging away.

``And there are several players like that on every team who are not superbly gifted but keep at it, keep following their dream. That's a hard life. But they do it because they love the game, they really do.''

Scully doesn't broadcast every Dodger game these days. He takes a few nights off a season, usually skipping games at the end of long, grinding road trips. He no longer broadcasts the World Series on the CBS radio network, either, preferring to spend the time with his family.

``The most precious thing in the world is time,'' Scully says. ``And I like to spend as much as I can with those I love.''

He prefers reading to movies, but sings the praises of past baseball efforts like ``The Natural,'' ``The Pride of the Yankees'' and ``Field of Dreams.'' But, staying true to form, his strongest memory connected with those films comes not from the movies themselves, but from a baseball game.

``I was doing the World Series with NBC in 1988 and the night after Kirk Gibson hit the most memorable home run in Southern California history, they married the Gibson home run to the one Robert Redford hit at the end of `The Natural.' And, oh my, it gave me goose bumps.''

His contract with the Dodgers calls for two more seasons, and Scully believes he will continue after that ``if'' - and here he goes again - ``the Fox ownership wants me to continue.'' (Can you imagine the headlines if they didn't?) The decision for him, he says, is really a no-brainer. Why should he - health permitting - stop doing something he loves?

``And it doesn't matter if the team is in first place or 20 games out,'' Scully says. ``I learned that basic lesson after Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale left and the team hit the skids. I can't think about the standings. If I just come to the ballpark and think about the game, I'll enjoy it immensely. Immensely. And, therefore, I still get excited and I still get emotional because I don't have that voice saying, `So what?' ''

``Besides,'' Scully adds, ``it's such a good game. The cast of characters can change, ownerships can change, ballparks can change, but the game is so good.''

Particularly when it's one called by Vin Scully.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

PHOTO (1 -- cover -- color) Vin Scully's love of the game. Voice of the Dodgers talks baseball and movies.

(2) Vin Scully: ``It doesn't matter if the team is in first place or 20 games out. ... I can't think about the standings. If I just come to the ballpark and think about the game, I'll enjoy it immensely. Immensely. And, therefore, I still get excited and I still get emotional.''

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

(3) `No one personifies the movie's title more than Vin. He has been the voice of baseball for as long as I can remember.' Kevin Costner