R.I.P.: Vince Bagli, 'Dean Of Baltimore Sports'

Vince Bagli 1927-2020

Former WBAL-TV sportscaster Vince Bagli, who became known as the “Dean of Baltimore Sports” in nearly five decades on air, died Tuesday.

The former Finksburg resident was 93. The Baltimore Sun reports his death was caused by complications from a pulmonary embolism, according to his son Vince Bagli Jr..

A former Baltimore Colts color commentator, the elder Mr. Bagli was an old-fashioned broadcaster who used handwritten notes instead of scripts on air. His inner fan — and his innate ability to connect with people from all walks of life — endeared him to generations of Baltimoreans.

Along with the professional sports scores, Mr. Bagli took pride in delivering the results of every local high school football game on Friday nights and name-dropping the players who had made big contributions, his son said.

The broadcaster spent 31 of his 46 years on air at WBAL-TV before retiring in 1995.

Vincent Thomas Bagli Sr. was born in Baltimore in 1927. His father, Francis Bagli, was an obstetrician, and his mother, the former Elizabeth O’Connor, was a nurse. He was raised in Hamilton, where he attended St. Dominic’s Parochial School.

Bagli first appeared behind a microphone in 1949, during his senior year in college. Loyola’s basketball team had traveled to Kansas City to play in a national basketball tournament, and while there was interest in the game back home in Baltimore, there was no live radio broadcast.  Bagli and several friends combined efforts to re-create the game by using telegrams and then broadcasting the game over the college’s public-address system in the gymnasium.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree and serving as a pharmacist’s mate in the Navy, he worked at two radio stations as a disc jockey and then joined WBAL as a staff announcer. After four years, he left to host an afternoon music and sports program on WWIN Radio.