Yankee Legends Pass, Leave Memories—

Sheppard, Boss, And Let’s Not Forget Layton, Left Their Marks In The Bronx

By Andy Hutchison

“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please…”

The voice emanated from the Yankee Stadium loudspeakers and traveled throughout the stands on any given day in which the New York Yankees were home for the last half century-plus. The voice was as important to the mystique of the Yankees as the pinstripes that have been synonymous with the organization’s on-field look.

Dubbed “the voice of God,” that voice belonged to Bob Sheppard, the Yankees’ public address announcer from 1951 until late in the 2007 season when Sheppard called his last game, a 10-2 win over Seattle on September 5 of that year. Sheppard died, at the age of 99, on July 11. In other words, he was 96 when he finally stepped down from his duties behind the microphone.

Who wants to retire young if keeping busy with something you love keeps you going?

Many hate the Yankees, for obvious reasons. The team — thanks to deep-pocketed and hungry-for-wins owner George Steinbrenner — has been able to dominate even as the game has evolved and the number of teams has increased almost as much as ticket prices throughout the decades.

Steinbrenner also died this past week after suffering a heart attack. He passed at the age of 80 on July 13.

It has been a tough week for the Yankee organization with two of its most critically important pieces being lost. Steinbrenner will be remembered as much for his short fuse and short leash on managers — hiring and firing one man, Billy Martin, a handful of times — as much as leading the Yankees back to their winning ways. The Bronx Bombers, under Steinbrenner’s direction, won seven World Series titles. Steinbrenner will also be remembered as the man who made the controversial move out of the original “House That Ruth Built” across the street into a state-of-the-art new Yankee Stadium after the 2008 season. He lived long enough to witness the Yankees win their 27th title in the inaugural season at their new digs — The House George Built.

 There were, let’s not forget, plenty of losing years for this mostly dominant franchise. A trip to Yankee Stadium, even during those tough seasons, was always a treat for me when I was growing up in the late 1980s and 1990s. The Yankees were flat out bad, and fans could get a day-of-game ticket to see the Yanks host the Red Sox a couple of decades ago.

It didn’t matter if the Yanks couldn’t get out of their own way; what made me a Yankee fan was Sheppard’s distinctive voice and the sounds of the stadium organ played by the late, great Eddie Layton who passed away in 2004. Layton worked at the old, original Yankee Stadium — along with Sheppard — from 1967 to 2003. His passing and the losses of Sheppard and Steinbrenner mean the end of an era in the Bronx.

Every ballpark has an announcer and almost all have organists, but there was always something distinctive about the sounds Sheppard and Layton provided at Yankee Stadium. Interestingly, neither worked toward their careers with the Yankees.

I interviewed Sheppard back in July of the 1999 season, his 49th season behind the microphone and my first as a fulltime sports writer out of college.

“This was an accidental thing that happened many, many years ago,” Sheppard said of becoming the PA announcer for the Yankees.

Sheppard was a speech professor at St John’s University and played semiprofessional football on Long Island beginning back in the 1930s and ’40s. He filled in to announce an exhibition football game between All-America Football Conference teams, the New York Yankees and Chicago Rockets. Someone with the Brooklyn Dodgers’ football team had heard Sheppard and asked him to announce the games. Sheppard got the side job and so began his part-time career as an announcer.

“The team folded in one year, but the football Yankees had heard me and they hired me the next year. When the baseball Yankees heard me do football they said, ‘Would you do baseball?’ — and that’s the story of my life,” Sheppard said.

He was the stadium announcer during 21 World Series appearances from 1951 to 2003. Sheppard also announced the New York Giants football games.

In the interview, Sheppard made it clear that PA announcing is not a fulltime job and that his main source of income was always teaching.

The game of baseball has changed tremendously during the last 50-plus years. Most notably, Sheppard said, the contests are much longer than they used to be — something he attributed, in large part, to the number of pitching changes.

“In my day the starter would finish — for the most part. Relief pitchers were not so well-known and you didn’t have a tremendous bullpen out there waiting to be called on,” Sheppard said.

He recalled well-hit balls going behind the monuments that sat in the field of play at the old stadium. Sheppard was well-known for not showing allegiance to one team but, rather, announcing names of both the Yankees and their visitors in the same noncheerleading-style concise tone for every batter.

Layton played the organ for soap operas on CBS in the 1960s before CBS bought the Yankees at which time Layton was asked to play for the team.

“I told them, ‘Look, I didn’t know anything about baseball. I always thought a sacrifice fly had something to do with killing an insect,’” Layton told me more than a decade ago. He was convinced to take the job, fortunately, and went on to inspire the fans and wound up inventing several of the variations of charges he played during games.

Layton’s sense of humor came through prior to a game on one of the hottest June days I remember. He typically welcomed the fans with the song “New York, New York” and others from an era gone by. On this particular scorcher he tried to cool off the fans with Christmas carols.

Going to the games at the new Yankee Stadium does not quite have the same feel as it did at the old park. Sheppard’s voice is missed, but fans are adapting to new PA announcer, Paul Olden, who hopefully will help create memories for Yankees fans for many years to come.

The presence of Sheppard, Steinbrenner, and Layton, however, is still very much felt in the Bronx. Yankee Captain Derek Jeter (pronounced ‘Jee-Tah’ by Sheppard) walks to home plate to the sounds of a recording of Sheppard announcing him for each at bat. Layton has successors, whom the organist picked himself, Paul Cartier and Ed Alstrom, hammering away on the keys. Steinbrenner’s stamp remains on the organization with the defending champs in first place, hitting for the fences at the Yankee Stadium “The Boss,” as he became known, built.

Listen to interviews with Sheppard and Layton on The Bee’s sports podcast at www.NewtownBee.com.