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HANE SHELDON has moved from pitching steaming baseballs across home plate to serving steaming plates of big-flavor food at BOLD, a striking, newish restaurant in Texas Corners. And BOLD aficionados — of whom there are many — are really happy with his change-up. Sheldon’s journey from pitcher’s mound to the upscale food industry started in Portage. Born and raised in south Portage, Sheldon, 39, graduated from Portage Central High School (PCHS) in 1991. He’d always been a multi-sport athlete, playing football, baseball and basketball. The 6-foot-3-inch Sheldon was a tight end, strong safety and kicker/punter on the PCHS football team. He was selected second team all state and was invited to play in the Michigan High School All-Stars football game his senior year. But, according to Sheldon’s mother, Marlene Sheldon of Portage, though Sheldon was an excellent kicker and “played everything,” his true love was always baseball. However, Marlene Sheldon also says that she detected an interest in food preparation while her son was just a toddler. “I had a drawer with all the pots and pans, and those were always Shane’s favorite things to play with,” she remembers. After graduating from Portage Central, Sheldon spent a year at Hillsdale College, where he played football and baseball. A fractured ankle during football season caused him to rethink his academic and athletic options, and he transferred to Gordon Junior College in Barnesville, Ga., where the weather allowed for a longer baseball season and he’d been told that the coach, Tom Clark, “could always use a good arm.” In addition to playing more ball in Georgia, Sheldon also got the chance to prepare —
From Baseball to %2/' Owner Shane Sheldon has hit a home run with his BOLD restaurant.
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Photos: Penny Briscoe
By Kaye Bennett even though he didn’t know it at the time — for his post-baseball career. As he found out, the South takes its food very seriously. It was hard to get back to Michigan from Georgia for all the holidays, remembers Sheldon, so a catcher on his team often invited Sheldon to join him in Savannah, at the home of his uncle, who was Cajun. “I never understood a word he said,” recalls Sheldon. “I just watched how he made the gumbo and the jambalaya and the alligator.” After a year at Gordon, Sheldon was a fourth-round draft choice for the Milwaukee Brewers in 1993. For the next three years, he pitched for Brewers minor league teams in Chandler, Ariz., and Helena, Mont. Those years provided lots of good family vacations, says Marlene Sheldon, since Sheldon always encouraged family members to come watch him play. The years also provided still more background for a food industry career. His salary in the minors, says Sheldon, was just $850 a month, so “my three roommates and I learned to make incredible dinners on a small budget.” On the mound, Shane Sheldon could throw hard (95 mph and up), but he says his control wasn’t where it needed to be for the big leagues. “I was as wild as you could be when it came to throwing strikes,” he laughs. After three years with Brewers’ teams, he spent a year in the independent Prairie League, playing in Brandon, Manitoba. That season he tore his rotator cuff, an injury that would send him home to Michigan for shoulder surgery and ultimately launch his new career. Sheldon says that, his professional baseball career behind him, he “thought bartending would be cool.” So he got himself hired as Bravo’s daytime bartender and, “After two weeks, I knew this was the business I was going to be in,” he says.