Bob Sheppard has sometimes been referred to as ‘the voice of God.’ He had an eloquence that anyone who ever heard him immediately recognizes. From the New York Times:
From the last days of DiMaggio through the primes times of Whitey Ford, Mantle, Roger Maris, Berra, Jackson and Jeter, Sheppard’s precise, resonant, even Olympian elocution — he was sometimes called the Voice of God — greeted Yankee fans with the words “Good afternoon,ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Yankee Stadium.”
Sheppard also believed that:
“A public-address announcer should be clear, concise, correct,” he said. “He should not be colorful, cute or comic.”
The following tribute to Bob Sheppard was from May, 2000:
Shepphard retired in 2007.
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hmmmm…no baseball fans? This man is a legend.
Moon, you realize how much you are getting on in years when all the familiar voices of your youth grow still. Yep, I remember Bob Shepphard, even though I was a Tiger fan and hated the Yankees with a passion. Even though Detroit was in the American League, when it came Series time in the early 1950’s I would root for the Dodgers and the Giants. You’ve got to admit though that Shepphard gave the Yankees some real class.
I loved the Yankees as a kid. I remember all the old ‘heroes.’ My favorite was the Mick.
Well, if there were any Yankees toward which I had some warm feelings, they were the Mick for his Midwestern modesty and Yogi Berra for his down-to-earth demeanor and his absolute devastation of English syntax. The Yog must be the most quoted ball player in history.
But the guy I really admired was Casey Stengel. There was always an argument about whether he was a good manager or was just able to put the “Bronx Bombers” of the 1950’s on autopilot. Stengel rivalled Yogi for the murder of English syntax. He was also a baseball clown. He played at one time for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The story goes that, during one contest, he was in left field. Half way through a somewhat lackluster game, he disappeared. Get that, the left fielder just disappeared! Turns out that, as a joke, he had crawled down inside a manhole in the outfield, pulled the cover over himself, and waited until somebody noticed that there was no one in left field. The “Boys of Summer” in old Brooklyn. Now, THAT was baseball!!