Bob Sheppard's Health Failing; Average Yankee Fan Doesn't Give a Flock

Good morning... ladies and gentlemen... and welcome... to Best Death Pool Ever... Your attention please... we have an update... someone picked on four rosters... Yankees public address announcer... Bob Sheppard... Picked on four rosters.

Sheppard, the Yankees’ distinctive public-address announcer since 1951, who missed the division series last October because of a bronchial infection, “is struggling to recover his health,” a spokesman for the Yankees, Howard Rubenstein, said Wednesday. The team “hopes he can return to the booth,” Rubenstein added.

I know he's a "legend," and "beloved," and "old," but I'm with Rick Reilly:

Everybody is so charmed by Yankee Stadium public address announcer Bob Sheppard, with his teeth-clenched, perfect-diction English. He sounds British. Is he British? No, he's from Long Island! Why, then, does he speak like Thurston Howell III? Bunch of Yankees fans drunk on lighter fluid in the stands, screaming, "I paid a buck to see ya mutha naked, Rocker!" and the club has some guy on the P.A. making like Alistair Cooke.

[NY Times]
[Sports Illustrated]