Bob Sheppard: Yankees announcer forever?

Really interesting post today from Darren Rovell on NBC's Sports Biz blog: It's about Bob Sheppard, the 97-year-old announcer for the New York Yankees. He's been announcing for the Yankees since 1951 -- that's 57 years -- except this year there's a bit of a difference:

Sheppard, 97, who had been announcing all the names and numbers for the New York Yankees since 1951, hasn’t made it to the stadium this year due to illness, but his voice has lived on due to the fact that he has recorded the Yankee lineup.

Given the ovation at the mention of Sheppard’s name last night, it’s clear that there would be no replacement for Sheppard if he sadly never makes it to the new stadium next year.

But due to the state of text-to-speech technology, Sheppard’s voice could be the voice of the starting lineups for the next 50 years, if the Yankees choose to go that route.

Read on...

Milwaukee Brewers host Prostate Cancer Screening night

As seen on the Partnership Activation blog:

The Brewers have done it again. The team recently conducted the second annual "Free Prostate Cancer Screening" night at the ballpark - an effort that resulted in 480 people getting screened, a 25% higher turnout than the team's 2007 event.

How did they do it? The Brewers teamed up with local television station WITI Milwaukee, the National Coalition Against Prostate Cancer, a Milwaukee-area hospital, and Froedert & the Medical College of Wisconsin to run the promotion... The collaborating parties targeted their messaging at men 40+ and their wives and required participants to only have to fill out minimal paperwork and take a quick blood test on-site. Oh yea, the team also offered each participating individual two (2)free tickets to a future Milwaukee Brewers home game... Now the general rule of thumb is that you should never give away tickets to the general public, but this case is definitely a true exception (tying in quality partners to collaborate on a worthy cause and driving media attention).