Bob Sheppard: your attention please, ladies and gentlemen, now speaking—Yankee Stadium's public address announcer

Baseball Digest, Nov, 2004 by Adam Schefter

NOT ALL SPORTS FANS WOULD RECOGNIZE HIS name, but almost all would recognize his voice. It is the voice of the New York Yankees, the New York Giants, and it is as distinctive as pinstripes. Former Yankees great Reggie Jackson once called it the "voice of God." "Your attention, please, ladies and gentlemen," Bob Sheppard begins in his deep, distinguished voice before nearly every announcement he makes as Yankee Stadium's public address announcer. "Now batting for the Yankees, the shortstop, Derek Jeter ... No. 2." So your attention, please, ladies and gentlemen. Now batting for this questions and answer column, Bob Sheppard.

Adam Schefter: Did you ever imagine becoming as much of a Yankees fixture as Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio?

Bob Sheppard: Absolutely not. When I took the job, I took it thinking this will fill in a year or two in my spare time. Never did I realize that I would he doing this for a lifetime. Generally the public address announcer is not conspicuous. He is hidden away. Nobody sees him. After 53 years, I could walk through a crowd of 50,000 people at Yankee Stadium, and if I kept my mouth shut, very few people would know what I look like. Public address announcers are secondary. Really. I can't name another public address announcer in the big leagues. Can you?

AS: Umm ...

BS: That shows how important we are. I don't know the Mets' announcers. I don't know who does Boston or Chicago or Denver. Do you?

AS: How often does somebody recognize your voice?

BS: Now that will happen, and has happened now and again. I can remember on Long Island, going to a party and going up to the open bar. I said, "I'll have a Scotch and water." And the bartender lifted his eyes and said, "You sound just like the man at Yankee Stadium." He didn't say, "You look like him." No, he said, "You sound like him." And when we spend our winter in Jupiter, Florida--January, February and March--I serve as a lector at the morning Masses. Once in a while someone will come up to me after Mass and say: "You know, you sound like the man up at Yankee Stadium. Did you know that?" And I say: "I know that. Because I am the man at Yankee Stadium."

AS: As a professor of speech at St. John's University, what was the one lesson you tried to impart to your students?

BS: The most important item for any public speaker is audibility. Too many people speak in public and do not reach the people in the back of the audience. Without audibility, you're dead. If you can't be heard, there's no sense in speaking.

AS: How have students expressed their gratitude to you?

BS: Believe it or not, I do get, on a semi-regular basis, thank-you letters from students of mine of the past. Since I taught for more than 25 years, I have taught thousands of students. Every once in a while, a letter reaches me saying, "I want to thank you for the help you gave me to become a better speaker, and as a result I'm making a living, and part of that is due to the fact that I'm speaking well." And that's my reward. Teaching doesn't have great monetary awards. But it has a lot of spiritual awards.

AS: Did you make more money as a teacher or a P.A. announcer?

BS: Oh, teaching is much better. You don't understand this. Public address announcing is a part-time job. But that part-time job has extended 53 years for the Yankees and 47 years with the Giants.

AS: How old are you?

BS: That's the one question I should have told you not to ask me. One time, not too many years ago, Jim Bouton, who used to pitch for the Yankees, was a TV announcer, and he asked if he could interview me. I graciously said yes, and he brought his TV crew up to the press box, and he set them up. He said, "Let's start by asking: 'How old are you, Bob?' And I said, 'What's your next question?' He repeated, 'How old are you, Bob.' And I said, This interview is over.'"

AS: How old do you feel?

BS: 22.

AS: What are your favorite names to announce?

BS: There's one at the present time that I love to have my tongue work around. Shigetoshi Hasegawa. And I love the Hispanic names because they're so euphonious. Alfonso Soriano. Those names are so much more euphonious than Anglo-Saxon names like Steve Sax. What can you do with Steve Sax?

AS: Do you do much pre-game work on names?

BS: I go to people and say, "How do you pronounce your name?" It's very important to me because teaching speech, I tell them early in the course, knowing the name of the student and pronouncing it properly is a tribute to the student. And even now, I went to Jason Giambi when he joined the Yankees and I said: "How do you pronounce your last name? Three syllables, like Gi-am-bi? Or two syllables like Giam-bi.' He said: 'I say, Giam-bi. Two syllables.' But 99 percent of the people announcing his name call him 'Gi-am-bi.'"

AS: Do you remember the first lineup you announced?

BS: At first base, Johnny Mize. At second base, Jerry Coleman. At shortstop, Phil Rizzuto. At third base, Billy Johnson. In left field, Jackie Jensen. In center field, Joe DiMaggio. In right field, Mickey Mantle. Catching, Yogi Berra. And pitching, Vic Raschi. And the first man I ever introduced in my career, which was April of 1951, was the Boston Red Sox center fielder Dom DiMaggio.