Mike was an impressive athlete at Christian Brothers School Excessive College, the place he was a soccer all-American, and in 1957 he was named the Missouri prep participant of the yr in each basketball and soccer. He attended the College of Missouri for a yr as a quarterback on a soccer scholarship. However he was additionally a baseball prospect, and in 1958 he signed with the Cardinals for what he stated in his autobiography was virtually $100,000, though it was reported on the time as $40,000.
After 4 years within the minor leagues, he performed sparingly with the Cardinals in 1962 and 1963, usually because the late-innings defensive alternative for the good hitter Stan Musial, who was then within the last yr of his Corridor of Fame profession.
Shannon didn’t comply with Musial into the Corridor of Fame (though he performed with a number of future Corridor of Famers, together with Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Orlando Cepeda and Steve Carlton). However he was a strong participant whose two-run house run off the Yankees’ Whitey Ford in Sport 1 of the 1964 World Collection tied the rating at 4-4. The Cardinals received the sport, 9-5, and went on to take the sequence in seven video games.
In 1967, Shannon moved from proper subject to 3rd base after the Cardinals acquired Roger Maris from the Yankees. The 2 grew to become shut pals.
St. Louis received the World Collection once more that yr, beating the Boston Pink Sox in seven video games. The following yr, the Detroit Tigers defeated the Cardinals, additionally in seven video games. Shannon hit a house run in every of these sequence.
Shannon performed till 1970, when he developed membranous nephropathy, an autoimmune dysfunction of the kidneys, which ended his profession. He had a profession batting common of .255, with 68 house runs and 367 runs batted in, and was elected to the Cardinals’ Corridor of Fame in 2014. Two of his teammates died just lately: the shortstop Dick Groat final month and the catcher Tim McCarver, who additionally had a distinguished profession as a broadcaster, in February.
Shannon joined the Cardinals’ promotions division in 1971 and have become a crew announcer the subsequent season. Along with calling Cardinal video games, he was a part of NBC’s backup crew for its “Sport of the Week” within the Eighties. He retired after the 2021 season.