Bob Sheppard, 99 (spilt-off)

[dgwphotography]

Yankees Announcer Bob Sheppard, 99.

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/yankees/e-boland-and-the-bombers-1.812003/bob-sheppard-dies-1.2095992

[Guest Kong76]

I thought Mr. Sheppard would live forever ... what a life he had!!

[ashie62]

Kong76 wrote: I thought Mr. Sheppard would live forever ... what a life he had!!

He saw them all, RIP.

[MFS62]

When Jeter comes to bat at YSIII, he still has them play a tape of Bob announcing him.
No matter what other descriptions of his voice you might hear over the next few days, his was the voice of doom for all visiting teams.

RIP, Bob.
It will be a long time before we can get that great voice, and the phrasing* of each announcement, out of our heads.

* = "Your attention please. Now ascending to heaven, Number 1, PA announcer, Bob Sheppard. Number 1."


Later

Edited July 11, 2010 by Guest

[smg58]

Sheppard was as iconic as stadium announcers can get. Impossible not to respect.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Sheppard's voice appeared in an episode (at least one) of Seinfeld. "Your attention please. Will Joel Rifkin please come to the box office. Joel Rifkin. Please report to the box office."

[Guest Kong76]

September 20, 2008
Sports of The Times
The Man Will Be Absent, but His Voice Carries
By GEORGE VECSEY

Bob Sheppard will not be in the Bronx this weekend for the closing of Yankee Stadium, but he will participate at Mass at St. Christopher�s Roman Catholic Church.

Since early spring, Sheppard has been well enough to take daily communion at the church a few blocks from his home in Baldwin, N.Y. During the terrible winter, when he struggled to raise his weight from 103 pounds, Sheppard could not venture outside the hospital or his home.

�Mary gave me communion every day,� he said, referring to the practice of administering the sacrament to the housebound.

�Mary is my angel,� Sheppard said Friday over the telephone, praising his wife for nursing him with food, vitamins, rest, advice, orders � and love.

Then he amended her rank.

�There are three Archangels � Michael, Gabriel and Raphael,� he said, his voice as crisp and clear as when he announced DiMaggio or Mantle or Jackson. �I have elevated her to the first female Archangel.�

Mary Sheppard made sure her husband gained weight after he had what has been described as bronchitis last fall. His weight has climbed to 140 � pounds as of Friday, Sheppard said, but he and his doctor do not feel he has the strength for even a cameo performance as the Yankees� public-address announcer for the Stadium�s final game Sunday night.

�The Yankees have been very gracious,� Sheppard said as he was awaiting a visit from club officials who would tape a message from him for this weekend. The Yankees offered a limousine and a seat in George M. Steinbrenner�s box, and maybe a few words if he felt up to it.

The Boss, who long ago revived the glory of this franchise, is not coming up from Florida this weekend. The two old lions, two decades apart in age, have this much in common: a sense of pride, not wanting special attention.

�I don�t have my best stuff,� Sheppard said, sounding like a pitcher whose fastball has lost some zip. But he still has his wits, to say nothing of the elocution that has graced Yankee Stadium since April 17, 1951, opening day.

How old is Sheppard? He won�t say. But he is the very same Robert Leo Sheppard who was a left-handed quarterback and first baseman for St. John�s College of Brooklyn from 1928 through 1932.

Sheppard does not feel the need to be at Yankee Stadium on Sunday night. His colleague, Jim Hall, has been doing fine in the tiny booth.

Sheppard used to sit there, reading from hard-covered books between pitches. In his tweedy blazers, looking like the college professor he once was, Sheppard would approach visiting players before the game and ask how they preferred their name to be pronounced. This diligence led him to employ the Spanish tilde while introducing the White Sox icon Minnie Meen-YO-so.

When Sheppard began in 1951, he never expected that one day he would enunciate his ultimate favorite of a ballplayer name, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, a Japanese pitcher of the past decade.

Sheppard�s voice will be heard Sunday night, as it has been all season � as the recorded introduction for No. 2, the Yankee captain Derek Jeter, after Jeter requested this rare favor. The shortstop�s name � JEE-tah � has become a stylized flourish for Sheppard, who is otherwise a purist. Or maybe we all have exaggerated it, as we imitated it. At any rate, when they finally tear down the old place, that echo will bounce off the apartment buildings and bridges and hills of the Bronx and Manhattan � JEE-tah, JEE-tah, JEE-tah � forever.

Sheppard�s legacy is secure � half a century of Giants football games, including the classic 1958 championship loss to Baltimore, his voice and microphone ensconced in the Baseball Hall of Fame (even if the rules have not been bent to induct him along with hallowed broadcasters) and inclusion in a few movies and commercials over the years. (He does have a business side to him.)

Essentially, Sheppard is a simple man, as some poets and clerics and teachers can be termed simple. He never sought the company of the athletes. He had his own niche in life, and he still does, giving thanks that he can attend church each morning, go shopping, and in good weather walk the garden behind his home, always with Mary.

They are the most handsome couple in the world. I used to see them walking the shoreline at Jones Beach State Park in the summer of 1961, but what I did not know was that they were newlyweds. When I sat in their living room a few months ago, they told me how they met, at church, of course, after Sheppard�s first wife died of a brain tumor, leaving him with four children. He invited Mary Hoffman to the beach, where they swam and played pitch-and-putt golf, and, when he was ready, he proposed.

Bob has not resumed serving as a lector at Mass, but Mary reads from the scripture many mornings � �the best female lector I have ever heard,� he said Friday, as if he were saying �No. 2, Derek JEE-tah.�

The Sheppards resisted the Yankees� kind offer of a limousine for Sunday night, but they do go out.

�You know how old I am?� Sheppard asked. �My daughter, Mary, is celebrating her 50th year in the convent. Can you imagine? And she is still young and beautiful.�

Sister Mary has arranged for a guest room for Bob and Mary Sheppard so they can rest between the breakfast and the Mass at the Josephites� convent on Long Island. Sheppard would not miss this celebration. As for the Yankees� opener next April, this man for many seasons says he just needs to gain a few more pounds, and he just might be there.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I like. I knew a lot of good people from St. Chris.

[Fman99]

As much as anything else, hearing his voice is one of the most memorable things about the one trip I made to YSII to see a game, back in 2001 or 2002.

[Benjamin Grimm]

He seemed like a nice guy. Too bad he spent his life in the service of evil.

[nymr83]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: He seemed like a nice guy. Too bad he spent his life in the service of evil.

The Yankees or The Church?

[Zvon]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: He seemed like a nice guy. Too bad he spent his life in the service of evil.

lol.
still, the force was with him.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Nymr83 wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: He seemed like a nice guy. Too bad he spent his life in the service of evil. The Yankees or The Church?

The Yankees.

[bmfc1]

When I saw Billy Crystal's "700 Sundays", the pre-show introduction was a tape of Bob Sheppard saying, "Your attention please ladies and gentlemen. Tonight, the part of Billy Crystal will be played by the Reverend Al Sharpton. If you're going to have a hard candy, please unwrap it now."

[G-Fafif]

Bob and I shared a mechanic here in the South Shore village where we both lived. I discovered this when we were picking up our cars at the same time one summer's day many years ago. The mechanic told me, after he left, "Mr. Sheppard announces the Giants games." I loved that he limited his credentials to that.

Very classy individual in my two minutes of interaction with him (before I realized who he was). I was quite obvious in my desire to get my car first, and when our mechanic came to the counter and asked "who's next?" Bob (in exactly the baritone you'd imagine) said, "well, this man seems to have won the foot race," which shamed me into, "no, please, after you."

The mechanic (who sadly is no longer with us either) offered Bob a Giants water bottle, which was free with the oil change. "No thank you," he said. "I have plenty of those."

[metirish]

Can't say I'm worked up about this at all.........see ya


RIP Bob

[Guest Edgy DC]

How do you say "no" to this guy?

[seawolf17]

Had a little mention of Sheppard's death before the game today at the stadium. Nice touch.

[seawolf17]

Oh, and this.



Legend, yes, but thanks to Topps and their "Fan Favorites" set a few years back, this is my endearing image of Mr. Sheppard.

[Gwreck]

metirish wrote: Can't say I'm worked up about this at all.........see ya

Sorry to be the one to say it but he was just another product of Yankee self-aggrandization and overpromotion.
Nice guy who does his job for a very long time does not automatically mean legend in my book.

[Guest themetfairy]

I'm not going to speak poorly of the dead. But I'd be lying if I said that I'm particularly mourning him.

I acknowledge that this is a loss. But in no way does it feel like my loss.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

WHAT THE HECK? I go away for the weekend and some of you guys get all mushy for the MFYs??? I was wondering if Tom Verducci hacked into the admins files, stole your passwords and started posting MFY drivel!

Yeah, he was a classy guy and with a nice voice -- and he used it for evil instead of good!

What's next? "Derek sort of does have an Edge, and range is overrated anyway, it's the intangibles that count?" "There's nothing wrong with being a Madonna-dating centaur?" "Of course the pool was electrified, aren't they all?" "A Diet Coke in a souvenir cup should cost $6.50?" "Of course Scooter should be in Cooperstown?"

[Guest Edgy DC]

Well, I'm certainly not offering any mush, but my feeling is that anything or -one that pre-dates Steinbrenner is entitled to a little more charity --- no more or less than any Mariner or Cub or Astro, anyhow.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I have to say that Gary and Howie, arriving a few years ago for the Mets annual visit to Yankee Stadium II, couldn't say enough how disgusted they were that bob Sheppard's substitute was basically doing a Sheppard imitation. They compared it to the notion of one of them coming on the air and trying to talk like Bob Murphy.

[metirish]

Edgy DC wrote: I have to say that Gary and Howie, arriving a few years ago for the Mets annual visit to Yankee Stadium II, couldn't say enough how disgusted they were that bob Sheppard's substitute was basically doing a Sheppard imitation. They compared it to the notion of one of them coming on the air and trying to talk like Bob Murphy.

Which is such a yankee thing to do , what arseholes they are.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Edgy DC wrote: Well, I'm certainly not offering any mush, but my feeling is that anything or -one that pre-dates Steinbrenner is entitled to a little more charity --- no more or less than any Mariner or Cub or Astro, anyhow.

WHAT??? Edgy, has the heat in DC gotten to you? That franchise has been nothing but trouble since it's INCEPTION. Look at its record on race, the nefarious dealings with the Kansas City Athletics..... It's not like Steinbrenner made them evil, he was drawn to the evil.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Edgy DC wrote: I have to say that Gary and Howie, arriving a few years ago for the Mets annual visit to Yankee Stadium II, couldn't say enough how disgusted they were that bob Sheppard's substitute was basically doing a Sheppard imitation. They compared it to the notion of one of them coming on the air and trying to talk like Bob Murphy.

It would be fun, though, if they did a "talk like Bob Murphy" telecast. Maybe just for a half inning.

[Guest Edgy DC]

It's not like anybody is clear on issues of race (except the Mets, who were the first team to be integated from day one).

I'm going to go with the "Steinbrenner made them evil" angle.

[Guest themetfairy]

metsguyinmichigan wrote: WHAT THE HECK? I go away for the weekend and some of you guys get all mushy for the MFYs??? I was wondering if Tom Verducci hacked into the admins files, stole your passwords and started posting MFY drivel! Yeah, he was a classy guy and with a nice voice -- and he used it for evil instead of good! What's next? "Derek sort of does have an Edge, and range is overrated anyway, it's the intangibles that count?" "There's nothing wrong with being a Madonna-dating centaur?" "Of course the pool was electrified, aren't they all?" "A Diet Coke in a souvenir cup should cost $6.50?" "Of course Scooter should be in Cooperstown?"

I love you, man!

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

All kidding aside... we're talking about a apparently kind and professional baritone who held onto a fun job with a nice paycheck for a good while... not a legend, but not Mengele, either.

If his death diminishes me at all, though, it's in the John Donne sense, and in no other.

Edited July 12, 2010 by Guest