Mike Shannon, who performed in three World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals after which turned a favourite of the group’s followers as one in every of its radio broadcasters for 50 seasons, died on Saturday. He was 83.
The Cardinals introduced the loss of life however didn’t give a trigger or say the place he died. Shannon had been hospitalized in 2020 with Covid-19 and later suffered from signs of lengthy Covid.
Shannon was one of many few announcers in baseball historical past to spend 50 years or extra with one group. His longevity was among the many issues that endeared him to listeners, alongside along with his exuberance and his ardour for seeing the Cardinals win.
In 2003, when the Cardinal slugger Albert Pujols hit a house run after being brushed again by the Chicago Cubs’ Kerry Wood, Shannon was ebullient: “Swing and howdy, Fourth of July! Take a experience on that knockdown pitch, huge boy! Kerry Wood knocked him down and now Albert appears to be like at him as he goes round first. He provides him the glare, saying, ‘Take a whiff of that, huge boy!’”
Bob Costas, the previous NBC sportscaster whose early skilled work was in St. Louis, mentioned that Shannon’s roots there have been a key to his success. “He was a kind of guys,” he mentioned by cellphone, “like Herb Score in Cleveland, Joe Nuxhall in Cincinnati and Jerry Remy in Boston, the place it really works as a result of he is native, he is one in every of our guys — and, in his case, grew up in St Louis and was a three-sport star in highschool.”
Shannon was identified for his signature house run name, “Get up, child, stand up!” and for odd and idiosyncratic strains: He referred to a pop-up as “a house run in a phone sales space” and to a Cardinal victory as a “monstramental win,” and he as soon as declared that a younger fan who had been hit by a foul ball “will depart the stadium with a memento as we speak — not a ball however a nice-looking bruise.”
Joe Buck, who, like his father, (*83*), was one in every of Shannon’s radio companions, mentioned by cellphone: “His Shannonisms made for nice listening, and a few of them had been so illogical. But you needed to know he was probably the most common sense folks I’ve ever met. He had a eager eye for the sport and would have been a nice supervisor.”
Thomas Michael Shannon was born on July 15, 1939, in St. Louis to Thomas and Elizabeth (Richason) Shannon. His father was a police officer and later turned a metropolis prosecutor.
Mike was an impressive athlete at Christian Brothers College High School, the place he was a soccer all-American, and in 1957 he was named the Missouri prep participant of the yr in each basketball and soccer. He attended the University of Missouri for a yr as a quarterback on a soccer scholarship. But he was additionally a baseball prospect, and in 1958 he signed with the Cardinals for what he mentioned in his autobiography was nearly $100,000, though it was reported at the time as $40,000.
After 4 years within the minor leagues, he performed sparingly with the Cardinals in 1962 and 1963, typically because the late-innings defensive substitute for the nice hitter Stan Musial, who was then within the remaining yr of his Hall of Fame profession.
Shannon didn’t comply with Musial into the Hall of Fame (though he performed with a number of future Hall of Famers, together with Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Orlando Cepeda and Steve Carlton). But he was a strong participant whose two-run house run off the Yankees’ Whitey Ford in Game 1 of the 1964 World Series tied the rating at 4-4. The Cardinals received the sport, 9-5, and went on to take the sequence in seven video games.
In 1967, Shannon moved from proper area to 3rd base after the Cardinals acquired Roger Maris from the Yankees. The two turned shut mates.
St. Louis received the World Series once more that yr, beating the Boston Red Sox in seven video games. The subsequent yr, the Detroit Tigers defeated the Cardinals, additionally in seven video games. Shannon hit a house run in every of these sequence.
Shannon performed till 1970, when he developed membranous nephropathy, an autoimmune dysfunction of the kidneys, which ended his profession. He had a profession batting common of .255, with 68 house runs and 367 runs batted in, and was elected to the Cardinals’ Hall of Fame in 2014. Two of his teammates died just lately: the shortstop Dick Groat final month and the catcher Tim McCarver, who additionally had a distinguished profession as a broadcaster, in February.
Shannon joined the Cardinals’ promotions division in 1971 and have become a group announcer the subsequent season. In addition to calling Cardinal video games, he was a part of NBC’s backup crew for its “Game of the Week” within the Eighties. He retired after the 2021 season.
His survivors embrace his spouse, Lori (Bergman) Shannon; his daughters, Patricia, Peg and Erin; his sons, Michael Jr., Tim and Dan; 18 grandchildren; and 9 great-grandchildren. His first spouse, Judith Ann (Bufe) Shannon, died in 2007.
The ball that Shannon slugged in Game 1 of the 1964 World Series traveled greater than 450 toes and broke the “u” within the Budweiser sign up left area at Busch Stadium, inflicting $5,000 in harm. At first, he thought he must pay for it.
In his autobiography, “Get Up, Baby!: My Seven Decades with the St. Louis Cardinals” (2022, with Rick Hummel), he recalled: “Gussie Busch, our proprietor, mentioned in that gravelly voice of his, ‘That’s all proper, buddy. You can break the entire signal down.’ And Gussie paid for it.”