Major League Baseball

Vin Scully once lost a competition to be John Madden's broadcast partner

Published May. 24, 2016 10:48 p.m. ET

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Vin Scully is retiring at the end of this season as arguably the greatest baseball broadcaster ever. But you might not know he lost a competition that produced one of the greatest NFL broadcast teams.

In addition to his role with the Dodgers, Scully broadcast football games for CBS in the late '70s and early 80s, and when the network pegged John Madden for its national broadcast team, it considered two veteran voices to be his partner: Scully and Pat Summerall.

The New York Times' Rob Weintraub details the ensuing competition, with each man broadcasting four games with Madden during the 1981 season, and the outcome: Madden's style clearly clicked better with Summerall, who won the job.

The decision and how it was handled didn't sit well with Scully, who moved on to NBC. His last NFL game for CBS was the San Francisco 49ers' victory over the Dallas Cowboys in the 1981 NFC Championship Game, capped by his call on Dwight Clark's catch.