Baseball was the first sport I really developed a love for, and as I’ve mentioned here many times, the New York Yankees were the object of that love.
But last week was not a good one for the Bombers. They lost their owner, 80-year-old George Steinbrenner, to a massive heart attack and their public address announcer of 50 years, Bob Sheppard, died at age 99.
I feel certain that Sheppard will be the first PA man inducted into the Hall of Fame. If you ever attended a game at Yankee Stadium, you’ll never forget the voice that mane have likened to the “Voice of God.”
He broke down each name he called out into its syllables very slowly and gave the player’s number before and after his name.
Sheppard was at Yankee Stadium for Mickey Mantle’s first game in 1951 and Mantle always said he got “goosebumps” every time he was introduced.
The “Num-ber sev-en, Mic-key Man-tle, num-ber sev-en,” style so impressed current Yanks great Derek Jeter that he had Sheppard make a recording of his introduction to be used for the rest of his career.
Steinbrenner bought the Yankees in 1973 and was a hard-driving “task master,” whose family became wealthy building ships in Cleveland Ohio. Few people liked his style, but his teams brought seven World Series crowns to New York to make the franchise’s total 27.
Going back to Jeter for a moment, I was really impressed when I learned he had become the all-time hits leader in Yankees’ history, besting the likes of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle. DiMaggio, with his record 56-game hitting streak and high number of hits each season, lost four of his best years to military service in World War II, however.
The “announcement”
Those of you who read my columns know about my admiration for LeBron James’ athletic skills. We old timers have a problem, however, with players putting their own teams together and figuring out how the dollars can be worked out.
If LeBron had sat down with the Cavaliers and worked those same things out with some give and take, his hometown team may have won more rings than Miami will, and they certainly would have meant more to him. It’s a job for owners.
The first big controversial sports deal was the sale of pitcher Babe Ruth by the Boston Red Sox to the Yankees in 1919. The big lefty had the year before set the record for the most scoreless innings in the World Series and tied for the most home runs in the American League with 11.
The Yankees made him their right fielder and he never pitched again. He would probably still hold the records if the schedules had not been increased and steroids had not come onto the scene.
Roy Waters is a sports columnist for The News Herald. Waters was baseball and basketball coach at Salem High School from 1955-66, where his teams won 18 championships. In 2007, he was inducted into the Burke County Sports Hall of Fame.
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