Bob Sheppard

But when Bob Sheppard speaks, anyone who has been to the famous ballpark in the Bronx can recognize him.

Bob Sheppard invites you to tour his web site where you can find information about his career as a multi-woodwind jazz performer and studio musician, information about his CDs, books and publications, jazz clinics, and his world-wide schedule of performances.

Saxophonist Sheppard has performed with Scott Henderson and Billy Childs, to name a few.

Robert Leo Sheppard, has been the public address announcer for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball since 1951, and was also the public address announcer for the New York Giants of the National Football League from 1956 to 2006.

This story was published in Yankees Magazine.

NEW YORK — He is as familiar to fans as any player in New York Yankees history.

Before the first game of a key four-game series with the Jays that September, Sheppard introduced opera singer Robert Merrill, who often sang the National Anthem at Yankee games in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, who proceeded to sing “O, Canada” out of respect to the visiting Jays.

On any given game day, anyone in earshot of Yankee Stadium can expect to hear the golden voice of public address announcer Bob Sheppard.

And now in his 50th season, Sheppard was in his telephone booth-size compartment high above Yankee Stadium Tuesday night, preparing to announce Game 1 of the American League Championship Series between New York and Seattle.

Before the first game of a key four-game series with the Jays that September, Sheppard introduced opera singer Robert Merrill, who often sang the National Anthem at Yankee games in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, who proceeded to sing “O, Canada ” out of respect to the visiting Jays.

Robert Leo Sheppard, has been the public address announcer for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball since 1951, and was for the New York Giants of the National Football League from 1956 to 2006.

This article is about the New York Yankees and former New York Giants announcer.

How he was discovered: An executive for the old Brooklyn Dodgers football team of the All-America Football Conference heard Sheppard announcing a charity football game on Long Island in the late 1940s.

On Opening Day 1951, with Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio sharing the outfield for the only time during their careers, Sheppard announced his first Yankees baseball game, forever becoming part of the team’s tradition and cementing his place in baseball history.

“Your attention please, ladies and gentlemen,” Sheppard begins in his deep, distinguished voice before nearly every announcement he makes as Yankee Stadium’s public address announcer.

In 1956, when the New York Giants football team moved into Yankee Stadium, he began announcing their games as well, staying with them for their move into Giants Stadium in New Jersey ’s Meadowlands Sports Complex.

Sheppard has also served as the NFL’s New York Giants public address announcer since 1956, but his top memories are restricted to baseball.

The only other person to share this honor was the late Bill King, the long-time radio play-by-play voice of the Oakland Raiders and Oakland Athletics.

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To supplement his teaching salary, Sheppard played semiprofessional football on Sundays with the Valley Stream Red Riders and the Hempstead Monitors on Long Island.

On several occasions, particularly in the 1970s, as can be heard in rebroadcasts of championship games from that era shown on networks like ESPN Classic and the YES Network, Sheppard has had to remind fans not to go onto the field of play, or to throw things on the field, or else they will be subject to arrest and removal from the stadium.

“I am a teacher of speech my whole life, and lectoring is just one portion of what I have been doing.

The first Yankee lineup Sheppard announced contained 5 future Hall of Famers: Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Johnny Mize, Yogi Berra, and Phil Rizzuto.

While thousands of players have come and are long gone from the Yankees and sons whose fathers once took them to Yankee Stadium are now taking their sons here, Sheppard remains a constant.

These instances have come in periods of mourning, as when Mantle died in 1995 or, beyond baseball, when Mother Theresa passed away in 1997.

He is in the St. John’s University Sports Hall of Fame as an athlete.

Somebody figured out that I have announced between 4,000 and 5,000 games,” Sheppard said.

During Bob Sheppard’s impressive 50-plus year reign as the Yankees’ public address announcer, the Yankees have captured 22 American League pennants and 13 World Series championships.

Sheppard taught in the New York City school system for more than 50 years.

And when you hear his slow, dignified speech, which has such cadence you think every pitching change is the Gettysburg Address, you wonder whether its divine quality is holding the foundation of this old ballpark together.