Bob Sheppard announced games at Yankee Stadium from 1951 to 2007. (AP photo)
Bob Sheppard, who died Sunday at the age of 99, will best be remembered as the voice bellowing down from the Yankees Stadium loudspeakers. Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter took it one step further and called him the “Voice of God.”
Sheppard announced more than just Yankees games, though. He traveled north on occasion and called Army football games up at West Point, according to The New York Times obit. Sheppard also called five Army-Navy games in Philadelphia.
The Times recounted in a May 2000 “Sports of the Times” piece how Sheppard accidentally left his microphone on when President John F. Kennedy crossed the field to go from the Army to the Navy side to watch the second half, an Army-Navy tradition.
”It was cold, but the president was only wearing a business suit. I told one of my spotters, ‘He doesn’t even have a topcoat on.’ I didn’t realize my microphone was on. Everybody in the stadium heard it,” Sheppard told The Times.
Sheppard was also in the Navy during World War II, serving in the South Pacific from 1942-1945.
