Sheppard to Miss Stadium Finale

From Newsday:

Longtime Yankee Stadium public address announcer Bob Sheppard will not be at the Stadium finale Sunday night, he told Newsday this morning.

"My heart will be up in the Bronx," Sheppard said. "But my body will be in front of television."

Speaking from his Baldwin home by phone, Sheppard said, "I don't have enough muscle to get up to the Bronx, even if I sit there in Steinbrenner's box. They offered me a seat there if I wanted to come up there and just watch the game."

But he turned that down, too.

"I really feel that if I had to leave my home at 4 o'clock and get home at midnight, it would be too much of a taxation on my whole body," he said.

When it became clear that he wasn't going to be able to attend, Sheppard said he wrote a speech on paper that he has thought about sending to the Yankees.

"It was that I was regretting not being there, you know, saying briefly what my memories of over 50 years of doing game after game after game, being friendly with some of the players," he said.

But he has not yet decided whether he will send it to the team, "because if it's to be delivered vocally, I would want to do it, and I can't do it from Baldwin."

"Next year is beckoning," he said. "And I have a two-year contract, so I intend to be back in the new stadium next April. I'm looking forward to that."

It really would have made the finale very special if he was there. This whole year has been strange without Mr. Sheppard at The Stadium, it hasn't felt, or sounded the same. But obviously the most important thing is Sheppard's health so you can't blame him for not wanting to risk it.

I hope he sends his speech, he should be part of the Stadium's finale in some way. But I think it would be even better if he recorded himself reading it, and the Yankees played that over the PA system, just so the fans could hear his voice for the final time in that great stadium.