Fans listening to Altoona Curve games on the radio during Thursday home games might feel like it’s 1996 and they’re at Veteran’s Memorial Field again.

That’s because not only are the Curve on the field as the Altoona Rail Kings, but a familiar voice is on the headset, Dave Shannon, the former director of media relations and one of the radio voices for the Rail Kings.

The two seasons Shannon and the late Charlie Weston provided Rail Kings fans with their calls of games might have only lasted the two seasons the team was in Altoona, but it provided Shannon with a multitude of memories.

Thanks to the efforts of the Curve organization in Mike Kessling as well broadcasters Jon Mozes and Preston Shoemaker, Shannon is able to provide commentary for Rail Kings night at PNG Field this season.

“It’s really sweet to be able to do this,” Shannon said. “I’ve enjoyed being with two real professional guys in Preston and Jon so it makes it that much better to be working in a booth where you have two professional guys, and so far, we’ve been telling stories, and I’ve got a bunch of them. I should probably write a book.”

Those memories start with a personal trip to hand his resume to Rail Kings general manager Mike Richmond who was desperately seeking a broadcaster and director of media relations as the season and debut of the team neared.

“I love baseball. Bob Prince is one of the reasons I got into broadcasting so I decided I should go ahead and do this,” Shannon said. “I had two days to get a resume to Mike and I had to find out where he was staying, which was then the Sheraton. And I went to the Sheraton and handed him my resume in person, and we talked for a while.”

The rest as they say is history. Shannon later came to find out the hand delivery of his resume is what helped Richmond give him the job.

Shannon hit the ground running with the organization and felt the pressure of putting on a great introduction to the community for opening night. It ended up being one of his favorite memories with the Rail Kings.

“Opening night, the very first game that we play, because at that point, even though you have your ticket sales and whatever, you just don’t know what this is going to be like,” Shannon said. “You made all the plans. You have all the things set up for between innings, the players have been working, getting ready to start the season, but you still don’t know what you’re going to get. And that opening night turned out, actually amazingly for our first time, how smoothly everything went.”

It was the culmination of a winter of preparation and hard work that helped get opening night off without a hitch.

“I didn’t think we’d be able to pull that off, to have something that good as far as that,” Shannon said. “Everything about it, the crowd, the atmosphere, it was just great to sit there in an office in the winter and it’s snowing and you’re thinking about these things and then to see it actually play out for real on a baseball field somewhere. It was just really rewarding.”

The Rail Kings paved the way for professional baseball in Altoona, but left after the 1997 campaign as the news of the Curve’s arrival began to pick up steam. Now, it’s the Curve who are honoring baseball history in their home city each Thursday home game.

“It’s amazing to see. I’ve got to tip my cap to the curve, because they put a yeoman’s effort into making sure that they recreated everything,” Shannon said. “When I see those uniforms down on the field, it just takes me right back. They did such a great job with the caps. The caps are, I bought one immediately and one of the things about the caps is they’re like what we had, except they went a step further, and we got, like, some side logo stuff, and then we have the Rail Kings logo in the back.”

On the field, the Rail Kings jerseys look crisp and are a more modern version of the ones worn at Vet’s Field and while the Rail Kings of old might be a distant memory, Shannon and the Curve connect the past and present of professional baseball in the city of Altoona, something he’s beyond proud of.

“One of the things I’m really proud of is when I go by Vet’s field, knowing what we did there and what we were able to accomplish,” Shannon said. “I did not keep in touch with Eric Reichert, who was the guy that made it happen. He was the guy that had the vision. He came here. He thought that Vet’s field would work, and it was just the right size, really, for the league we were in. And what was getting started, he picked everything really well. Picked a good GM, in Richmond, and then he assembled the rest of the staff around him. There’s that pride when I go by Vet’s Field, and I think about that every time.”