Seventy years ago today – April 17, 1951 – both the Voice of God and The Commerce Comet landed at Yankee Stadium for the first time.
On April 17, 1951, Mickey Mantle made his major-league debut, hitting third and playing right field for the Yankees. Batting behind Phil Rizzuto and ahead of Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra – quite the run of retired numbers – Mantle went 1-for-4 in the Yankees’ 5-0 season-opening win over the Red Sox.
Mantle was part of a three-run rally in the eighth, recording the first of his 2,415 career hits, 1,509 career RBI, and 1,676 career runs scored.
Also on that day, Mantle and the rest of the Yankees lineup were introduced by Bob Sheppard, who made his debut as the Yankees’ public address announcer. In the two lineups that day were eight future Hall of Famers – DiMaggio, Mantle, Berra, Rizzuto, Johnny Mize, Ted Williams, Lou Boudreau, and Bobby Doerr – as well as Joltin’ Joe’s brother Dom, who was the Red Sox’s leadoff hitter and thus the first name announced by Sheppard.
Such began a career that lasted 57 years and nearly 4,000 games, the final one coming on Sept. 5, 2007 – a 10-2 Yankees win over Seattle that occurred about a month shy of Sheppard’s 97th birthday. He was replaced by Jim Hall in 2008 and then current PA announcer Paul Olden in 2009, and although Sheppard passed away in 2010, his voice was the only one that ever announced Derek Jeter at Yankee Stadium.
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