Vin Scully ‘embarrassed over all the fuss’

Reporting from Phoenix

Vin Scully rolled up his right sleeve, lifted his arm and pointed to a wide, purple bruise around his elbow.

“Somehow I did it to myself,” he said sheepishly. “I hope not to do it again.”

The Dodgers’ Hall of Fame announcer was referring to his fall at home last week and brief hospitalization.

But Scully, 82, was back at work Sunday on the telecast of the Dodgers’ 12-5 loss to the Cleveland Indians at Camelback Ranch, his first spring training game of the season.

Scully opened with his familiar phrase, “It’s time for Dodger baseball,” and then said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a moment to say I’m sorry to have caused the accident that caused so much concern.”

He thanked the medical personnel “for taking such good care of me” and added, “Lord, I’m happy to be here.”

In a brief session with reporters before the game, Scully talked about the outpouring of concern among his fans and said he was “embarrassed over all the fuss.”

But Scully, who also received five stitch-like “staples” to close a cut in the back of his head from the fall, said, “I do appreciate that immensely and humbly, and I guess that’s why I’m embarrassed to put them through anything at all, especially when it was so simple and harmless.”

Scully explained he’d been fighting a cough and, while reading in bed Thursday night at his Hidden Hills home, “all of a sudden I felt one of these big bronchial coughs coming up, and I thought I would get to the bathroom. I jumped out of bed. Bad idea. I got dizzy.”

He moved toward the bathroom but had to cross a marble floor “and all of a sudden I blacked out. [I] woke up, sitting on the floor, my wife calling 911, blood on the floor.”

Scully said he had suffered what’s known as a vasovagal episode that causes fainting and “I turned my own lights out for a split second. And that’s really it.”

Gagne released

Eric Gagne was released by the Dodgers on Sunday, ending the closer’s ambition of recapturing his glory days with his original club.

As a non-roster player on a minor league contract, the 34-year-old Gagne faced long odds of making the Dodgers’ opening-day roster. His odds went from being slim to none as he posted a 20.25 earned-run average in three spring appearances and was sent to minor league camp last week.

“It was going to be a bit of a struggle,” General Manager Ned Colletti said. “Both parties decided it would be best for him to see if he could get another opportunity with another club before the end of camp.”

Gagne, who admitted to Times columnist T.J. Simers last month he used human growth hormone in his first stint with the Dodgers, was pounded for six runs and eight hits in 2 2/3 innings.

james.peltz@latimes.com

Times staff writer Steve Galluzzo contributed to this report from Los Angeles.