This season is set to be the 50th and final year in the broadcast booth for Cardinals radio voice Mike Shannon. But according to the 81-year-old, he almost didn’t make it after a severe bout with COVID-19 last fall.
Speaking with Rick Hummel of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Shannon said he spent 15 days in the hospital from late October into November.
“I was going down,” Shannon said. “I was probably going to die.”
His wife Lori Shannon described driving to the hospital the day he became sick, and notably remembered how quickly he took a turn for the worse.
“Within four hours he went from normal Mike Shannon to ‘I can’t breathe’ Mike Shannon to hanging his head out of the window as I’m driving 80 miles an hour down the highway,” she told The Post-Dispatch. “We got into the emergency room and it was pretty much like seven liters, 15 liters, 30 liters, boom, we’re out of oxygen. So they moved him into the Intensive Care Unit.
“Within the next hour, he was so agitated about the thing at that point that he was down for the count and they had to put him into a medical coma. The COVID had taken over so quickly.”
After about five days in the hospital, Lori was told her husband wasn’t going to make it. But then, according to Shannon, he was given “the stuff they gave the President and that turned the trick.” “The stuff” that Donald Trump received was a monoclonal antibody cocktail from Regeneron.
Nearly five months later, Shannon has returned to work after a miraculous turnaround, but he’s still in the process of recovering, receiving physical therapy three times a week while working a lighter six-innings per game. According to Hummel, it hasn’t been decided if the six-inning schedule for Shannon will continue during the regular season.
Shannon’s career with the Cardinals began in 1958 when he was signed as a player. He made it to the big leagues in 1962 and enjoyed a nine-year career which included two World Series championships. After retiring from the field, Shannon joined the Cardinals front office, but quickly transitioned to the radio booth alongside Jack Buck in 1972. Nearly a half-century later, Shannon is set to begin his 50th season as a Cardinals radio announcer.
Last summer, during the modified MLB schedule because of COVID,-19, Shannon worked just 27 games for the Cardinals. The 81-year-old broadcaster is expected to call approximately 50 games without travel in what will likely be his final season in the booth.