“I know that’s Mike Shannon.”
I remember how fervently I had to state it to my friend, my friend who didn’t even know who Mike Shannon was, but still didn’t believe me. It was for a good reason. What the Hell was Mike Shannon doing there?
There is a period in Spring Training before games begin when the teams are just working out, and you as a fan are allowed to watch. I don’t know that people realize this, but the teams will practice on the back fields, and the fans will be sitting in little league-style metal bleachers and be feet away from the players while they do their thing.
Now the Cardinals have Spring Training in Jupiter, Florida. That’s not a city that a lot of people have heard of. It’s a retirement town built around golf courses and the Atlantic, Ocean. And it’s very, very nice. Very nice. It’s filled with the super-rich. Miles Mikolas lives there now. Any golfer you’ve ever heard of lives there. Patriot’s owner Robert Kraft lives there, and I hear he cannot recommend the massage parlors enough.
So the crowd that watches these Cardinals practices is fairly hilarious. You’ll find on any given day 20-100 elderly people dressed in hybrid Cardinals-Florida wear. We’re talking Cardinals Sun-Hats adorned with a Flamingo. Every woman has dangling diamond earrings with a ruby Cardinal at the end. Every man is yelling out the names of prospects and telling them how nice their form is, while they take infield practice.
Every person has something they’d like to be autographed, and if you’ve never been nearly tackled by an old woman seeking a Jonathan Broxton autograph, well let me tell you my friend, you’ve never lived.
I’m not knocking these people at all. These are my people. I’ve been attending these off and on now for 20 years, and it’s my favorite baseball activity. Sitting next to an old man watching a multi-million dollar professional athlete shagging fly balls, and yelling “TWO HANDS” to them on February 22nd? That’s the life. I can’t wait. That’s who I want to be.
One time I took a friend who also likes autographs, and as we sat there on a set of bleachers, I looked over and I’m telling you, among the old people watching a practice, was Mike Shannon watching along.
“That’s Mike Shannon over there,” I said.
“Who?”
It’s amazing to me how legendary a person can be in one silo, and completely unknown they are in another silo. That’s one cool thing about Mike Shannon. He belongs to us. No one else can even try. Born in St. Louis. High School in St. Louis. College at the University of Missouri signed with the St. Louis Cardinals, where he played his entire professional career. World Series Champion in 1964 and 1967. Beloved announcer for 50 years. Attended a Cardinals game in the weeks before his death.
Well, all of that’s nice, but like anything else it’s not COMPLETELY true.
The Cardinals actually traded him to Boston in 1962 when he was in the minor leagues. They reclaimed him a few months later. I don’t know exactly how that works, except to say: Manifest Destiny. No one can lay a claim on Mike Shannon except St. Louis. They just…took him back.
And so we’re on to 60 years where every Cardinals fan knew who Mike Shannon was, and most other baseball fans didn’t. He was a God in St. Louis, and a nothing to casual fans everywhere else.
So, there’s no reason for my friend to have doubted me when I told him it was Mike Shannon – except – why would anyone worth knowing be sitting in those bleachers watching a practice? He was just another old person.
But I knew better. He was sitting on the 2nd row, far left. I circled around and walked up to him and casually and quietly said, “Hey Mike, will you sign my hat?”
Let me tell you his eyes rolled. He turned to me and quietly said, “If I sign your hat. Do you know what will happen? Everyone here will be all up in arms and come clamoring over.”
And I said, (and I wish I could say this isn’t true, but it is), “I don’t care.”
He let out a huff and reached out for my hat and pen, my buddy close behind with his, and at this you could hear the clattering of old lady jewelry as the bleachers realized it wasn’t just another old-timer sitting along side of them. It was Mike Shannon. And now it was on.
“Now what did I tell you?” he said not looking up.
“Everyone loves you, Mike.”
“You owe me one.”
“Definitely. What do you want?”
“What have you got?”
“I have a Mike Shannon autographed hat”
“Huh, Worthless. But I like the hat.”
“Thanks, Mike.”
Shannon signed for every geezer as he moved toward the safety of the chain linked fence. I’d ruined his time sitting anonymously. I have no shame.
When I heard the news today, I grabbed that hat and wore it out.
I thought about Mike Shannon sitting there, and just how much he blended in. Mike Shannon was never a poet. Bob Gibson was making fun of his speaking skills back in their playing days. Of anyone, how did MIKE SHANNON get trusted with announcing baseball for the next 50 years?
The answer, I think, is that Mike Shannon wasn’t an announcer. Not really. He was a fan, with a microphone close enough to hear him. He was, for Cardinals fans my age, our grandpa sitting in his lounge chair at home talking along with the game. “There’s your run big boy!”
He spoke like we spoke at home. He wasn’t slick. Slick sucks. “SANTA MARIA!” as a home run call is just terrible. Workshopped at home in front of the mirror. Tested for audience reaction. Unnatural. Gross.
“Get up, get up baby.” That’s different. That’s a plea. That’s more or less the sentiment of every Cardinal’s fan with every batted ball that has a chance. PLEASE. PLEASE make it out. Shannon wasn’t selling us some scripted call. Shannon wasn’t announcing the game action. Shannon was cheering along side of us. When he said “Get up baby” we sat up at attention, waiting to hear if it would get up. It wasn’t ever a definitive home run – it wasn’t the auto-recording of what he would say once it went over the fence. It’s what came out when the ball was in mid-air, and over the course of the next half-second time would slow down and you would desperately wait to see if the ball in fact did get up. And if it did, you would be cheering along side of him.
That was Mike. He was the Cardinals fan you wanted to sit by at the game. His verbal blunders were part of the charm of knowing he was just like we are. His laugh was perfect. His desires for a cold-frosty one – I mean, you believed him right? There was an authenticity to Mike that cannot be replaced. It wasn’t just that you invited him into your car, or your living room. It’s that it wasn’t totally the baseball that you fell in love with without him there. Just like when your grandpa was no longer around to share those experiences – there’s a magic you can never get back.
I’ll be honest with you, the last year or two were rough. He sounded rough. He sounded tired, worn out, done trying to talk for hours on end. I felt bad for him. Sometimes it was painful to listen to. Sometimes I’d wonder if he’d make it through that last year.
I didn’t miss him when he retired. I’d already been missing him for a few years. Time – I don’t know if there’s anything worse than the passage of time.
I walked down a pier today. It was unrelated. I was going out anyway. There have been unbelievable storms here, and today it was sunny, cool, and with an unbelievable breeze. My favorite. I wasn’t going to waste it.
I adjusted my hat, and I thought of him. Thought about how well he fit in on those bleachers. It occurred to me I’d never seen another announcer do that. I’ve never seen another player. I haven’t seen a member of the press do it – I’ve only seen Mike Shannon do it, in his 70s, in Florida, days before there was a game to announce. And he was watching players practice. I can feel that love of baseball in my soul. When he said he liked my hat – well – it was a pretty standard baseball hat, adorned with the Cardinals logo. I think that’s why he liked it. He just loved the Cardinals.
I stood up to turn around and walk away and a gust took my hat right off, and gone. Into a Florida lake. I had a momentary rush of panic, and dismay, and a circle through the stages of grief for my hat. Then I remembered what he said.
“You owe me one.”
“Definitely. What do you want?”
“What have you got?”
“I have a Mike Shannon autographed hat”
“Huh, Worthless. But I like the hat.”
Now, the hat was gone. At a gust of wind from the hands of God. The son-of-a-bitch took me up on my offer. He can have the hat.
I don’t know where Mike’s soul is tonight. But I know I’m rooting for it. Get up baby, Get up.