Mike Shannon Cutting Back On Cards’ Games

Mike Shannon

Mike Shannon is about to enter his 43rd season in the Cardinals’ radio booth. He is starting his 56th year working for the team (as a player, a member of the promotions department and as an announcer). And he turns 74 in July.

So not surprisingly, writes Dan Caesar at stltoday.com,  he is cutting back a bit in his broadcast schedule this season.

He had been taking off about 15 games in recent seasons, but that number is set to roughly double this year. Cardinals senior vice president Dan Farrell, who oversees the team’s broadcast operations, said most — if not all — absences will be for road games and primarily on three-city trips beginning with one in mid-April. Shannon is set to miss either part or all of those long voyages.

A reduced schedule is something common among long-tenured baseball broadcasters. Jack Buck, Shannon’s partner before Buck died in 2002, dropped almost all road assignments at age 70. Legendary Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully, 85, long ago stopped calling games east of the Rockies.

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