Roger Shea, man behind scenes of Boston sports
"The busiest man at Fenway Park during a ball game isn't on the field or behind a beer counter, but out in the player's parking lot on Van Ness Street. He's Roger Shea of Scituate, who directs the Channel 5 telecasts of Red Sox games." - Tim Horgan, Boston Herald columnist, 1969.
From 1957 to 1972, Roger Shea was the man behind the scenes as director of televised Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins games, including nine seasons at WHDH doing Red Sox broadcasts. Wearing two headsets and working in a mobile van, he guided his crew of technicians and cameramen while staying in constant touch with his announcers, letting them know which camera angle was about to be utilized.
"He approached his craft not unlike the athletes he covered," said Mr. Shea's son Michael of Carmel, Ind. "He arrived at the park or stadium hours before game time, he did his homework, and he had a great sense of anticipation. And he was versatile, also helping out at Channel 5 with directing the 11 o'clock news and the Saturday morning candlepin bowling show for many years."
Mr. Shea, who after leaving Boston also produced and directed the Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, and Seattle Mariners baseball games through his freelance company, Sport Ventures Inc. of Largo, Fla., died Dec. 30 at the home of his daughter Linda in Quincy after a 10-year battle with cancer. Mr. Shea, who was 80, had lived in Largo until shortly before his death.
"Roger was a perfectionist," recalled longtime friend and former Detroit Tigers TV baseball announcer Larry Osterman, who worked with Mr. Shea at station WWJ in the 1970s. "He wanted his camera people to get it right the first time, but he did it in a professional way. He knew the game and he knew television and we had a lot of fun together.
"Roger talked to the production people, the camera people, and the announcers before every game," added Osterman, who also resides in Largo. "He also knew the players, the front office executives, and the folks who worked the concession stands because he was a people person. He loved to talk shop and to talk baseball."
Mr. Shea was recognized by the Cleveland chapter of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1981 with an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Local Coverage. He was also a producer/director of regional National Football League games, New England (Hartford) Whalers hockey games, Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons basketball games, and NBC's Game of the Week baseball telecasts. He was on the scene in 1968 at Harvard Stadium, where he directed coverage of the historic 29-29 Harvard-Yale football game for both Channel 5 (now WCVB-TV) and the closed-circuit TV audience at the Harvard Alumni Club in New York City.
"Baseball," Mr. Shea told Horgan, "is by far the toughest sport to direct. It isn't the size of the field so much but the fact that it is a slow game. When something does happen, it happens pretty fast. The game can go along for minutes with nothing much happening, then in the space of a few seconds there is a double play or a two-base error or a tape-measure home run.
"You can't fake this game. If you can't anticipate what might happen in a given situation, your cameras [there were four at Fenway Park then] won't catch the play. There's no time after the ball is hit."
In a 1983 interview with the Seattle Times, Mr. Shea added that while other sports have a predictable flow of action, are played in a confined arena, and finish within a similar time frame, baseball presented different challenges: "In baseball," he said, "you must be ready for anything. There are some lulls, but when action picks up, it often occurs in several spots."
He did that job well, according to Horgan: "The man who directs the Sox games misses very few key plays during the course of the season," he wrote, "which is a tribute to his training, his experience, and his knowledge of the game."
Mr. Shea, who also worked the 1967 World Series between the Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals, experienced every level of television sports production - from major networks to independent stations to cable companies.
Mr. Shea, who resided in Scituate while working at WHDH-TV and also at WSBK-TV (for Bruins broadcasts), was born in Fall River and graduated from Durfee High School in 1945. He enlisted in the Navy at age 17 and was a weather specialist stationed in the Philippines.
He then attended Boston University on the GI Bill, graduating in 1952 with a major in visual communications and a minor in motion picture production. A member of the Photography Club at BU, Mr. Shea once had a job offer to work as a photographer for United Press International in Washington for $25 a week.
"After he had the UPI offer he decided he would knock on doors for one more day," said his son. "He walked into a TV station in Washington and found out that their film editor was about to leave and he applied for that job instead and was hired. It was his start in television, and a few years later he was at WHDH."
During his retirement years, Mr. Shea lived in both St. Augustine and Largo, Fla. He and his late wife, Carole (Mewborne), enjoyed being full-time grandparents.
Mr. Shea also enjoyed boating and loved to catch stripers off the coast of Scituate that would often become a family meal.
In addition to his son Michael and daughter Linda, Mr. Shea leaves another son, Stephen of Largo; two other daughters, Debra Stelzer of Scituate and Brenda of Los Angeles; a sister, Virginia McWeeney of Westport; and five grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at a later date.
Correction: Because of an editing error, the headline and picture caption of an obituary of Roger Shea yesterday had the wrong first name. 