David McShane grew up in the 700 level. Now he paints murals of Philadelphia’s sports icons.

The Veterans Stadium grass was fake, the seats were high up in the 700 level, and the food was packed from home as if they were going on a picnic. For David McShane, it was perfect. He never saw an outfield so green and his parents so relaxed. The kid was hooked.

“My dad was a plumber, and he worked all the time to raise eight kids in the 1970s,” McShane said. “Things were tough. But here’s a space where you get to have your mom and dad and just sit with them and talk to them.”

McShane fell in love with Philadelphia sports in a stadium where seats cost just 50 cents and the crowds often were so sparse that he could wander the seating bowl with his siblings and cousins while the game was being played.

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More than 50 years later, McShane, 60, is the artist behind some of the city’s best-known murals. He paints his sports heroes for Mural Arts Philadelphia with the same passion he had as a kid that first day at Veterans Stadium. He painted Jackie Robinson and Joe Frazier on Broad Street, Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton on Walnut Street, and, earlier this week, unveiled his latest work: a Northeast Philly mural celebrating the second Super Bowl victory. The artist is a fan, just like his audience.

“There’s great stories in sports. There’s a lot of compelling stuff,” McShane said. “I also just love painting the figure in motion. It’s almost like poetry in motion or ballet. To throw a 99-mph fastball, what it does to your body and how you contort your body to do that is pretty amazing. Then to hit a 99-mph fastball is equally amazing. There’s something about that that I find really beautiful.

“It’s the human body performing at its most athletic excellence. There’s just pure beauty to that. Maybe not everyone is into that. But that’s always captivated me.”

McShane started painting, drawing, and simply “making stuff” as a boy alongside his twin brother, Frank, as a way to get attention as the two youngest children.

“My mom always said she got the ‘Buy seven, get one free deal,’” McShane said. “And I always joked, ‘Well, I’m the one you paid for.’”

The brothers painted their first mural in eighth grade, when they added Superman to their nephew’s bedroom. They did scenery for the plays in high school at Paul VI and painted murals at the end of the hallways.

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“You could petition a nun to paint a mural,” McShane said. “And she would rake you over the coals. If you wanted to do a mural, you could. But you really had to earn it.”

He had talent, but McShane wanted to become a surgeon, so he went to La Salle as a premed major while his brother went to the University of the Arts. La Salle didn’t have an art program, but McShane was hired by Speedy Morris — then the school’s men’s basketball coach — to paint murals in the athletic building, and he did artwork in the dorms. His passion was still burning.

McShane graduated at the top of his class, prepared his applications for medical school, and never mailed them.

“It was too expensive,” McShane said. “I think it was $500 or $1,000 for one school. I was a working-class kid. So I was like, ‘If I’m not even sure I want to go, why would I spend that just to apply?’ I had this revelation that I just didn’t think it was for me. My passion for the human body isn’t what makes it tick and what’s inside, but it’s the aesthetics. I knew I wanted to be a figurative painter.”

He went to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, completed his master’s of fine arts, and met Jane Golden, who was running the city’s mural arts program. McShane found what he wanted to do.

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“There were a lot of painting majors at the academy who just wanted to make paintings and sell them in galleries and stuff,” McShane said. “That’s perfectly fine. But for me, I’m not someone who hung in galleries when I was growing up or even knew what art galleries were. Here’s this form of art where you’re doing it outside, and it’s accessible to anyone who walks up to it. They can think about it, critique it, love it, hate it, whatever. But it’s just out there in the public.

“I could see myself working with everyday people making art together and transforming a neighborhood rather than being in an art gallery where mostly people who are wealthy or on the elite side would go. That didn’t feel like much of a home for me.”

McShane’s first mural for Golden was in the summer of 1995 at the Cione Recreation Center at Lehigh and Aramingo Avenues. He painted a mural of two Philadelphia police officers who died in the line of duty: Joey Friel and Frederick Cione. He then painted a mural of William Penn on Seventh and Brown Streets.

And then McShane was in the car with Golden, driving around the city in search of a wall for a future mural. She said someone wanted to honor Jackie Robinson on the 50th anniversary of his breaking baseball’s color barrier. Golden asked McShane if he knew anyone who could do the mural.

McShane, the guy who fell in love with baseball in the 700 level, had been painting a series of old-time baseball portraits in his studio as a way to practice working with the acrylic paint used for murals. Yes, he knew someone.

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“That was basically being in the right place at the right time,” McShane said. “That was the one that put me on the map.”

McShane’s three-story-high mural of Robinson sliding home in the 1955 World Series towers over North Broad Street. It resonated with the neighborhood. The mural, McShane said, became his personal billboard. Everyone knew about the Robinson piece. The owners of the Blue Horizon — the iconic boxing arena near Broad and Master Streets — saw it and asked McShane to paint a mural on the side of their venue.

They wanted a portrait of the 1970s heavyweight kings: Frazier, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, and Larry Holmes. It was McShane’s job to make it happen. He made a composition and stopped by Frazier’s Broad Street gym, hoping to receive approval from the former champ.

Frazier’s son, Marvis, told McShane that his father wanted the mural to show him throwing his signature left hook and wearing the green-and-gold trunks he wore the night he beat Ali. McShane met the demands, worked on a new composition, and headed back to the gym.

“I thought I was just meeting with Marvis, and then Joe walks in the room,” McShane said. “He looks at the design and says, ‘Why do you make Ali look all pretty and me look all beat up?’ I didn’t know what to say. I just said, ‘Is there a photo of yourself in the ring that you like and looks good?’ That’s when I finally cracked that code. They gave me a photo, I worked from that, and it was all good. It was cool to meet Joe. He was a presence in the room, and I was pretty amazed by him.”

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The Eagles were on TV every Sunday in McShane’s home, and the Phillies were on the radio every night on his grandfather’s porch. He became an artist, but he was always a sports fan.

So of course McShane was with Golden after the 2008 World Series when the Phillies called and asked if they could have a mural to celebrate their title. McShane told them to think bigger. He wanted to do a mural celebrating the franchise’s history. The Phillies were in and allowed the artist to guide the project.

“For me, it was the ultimate,” McShane said. “It was a dream come true. What could be better?”

They found a location facing the Schuylkill on 24th and Walnut Streets, and McShane started picking the players. He included every Phillies park and the team’s iconic players. He snuck in a few things like Baker Bowl’s “The Phillies use Lifebuoy Soap” sign and included Mitch Williams to represent “all the heartbreak that all the Phillies players have endured over the years.” He paired Tug McGraw with Brad Lidge, Jim Bunning with Roy Halladay, and Mike Schmidt with Ryan Howard.

“Stan Hochman interviewed me about it,” McShane said. “I loved Stan and his work, and he used to be on the radio and had that great voice. I remember him going, ‘Did ya consider Gene Mauch?’ You know how he talked.”

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McShane flew to spring training in 2012 to have the Phillies help him paint. Jimmy Rollins and Schmidt painted themselves. Cole Hamels and Chase Utley were there. So were Pat Gillick and Ryne Sandberg, who was then the Phillies manager.

“I was like … ‘There’s a lot of Hall of Famers,’” McShane said. “It was pretty amazing. That was one of my favorite days of being a mural painter. All these people I idolized as a kid, now suddenly, I’m their boss. ‘Now stay in the lines there.’”

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The last thing McShane needed was a crowd. This was his chance, he thought. He painted his friends and siblings cheering in the stands. He slipped in Frank Zappa and J.D. Salinger. And then he painted Pat and Rose McShane, the mother and father who sat with their son in the 700 level. His parents died months before the mural was finished, but they knew about McShane’s plans. It was his chance to say thanks for those 50-cent seats.

“I remember when the Phillies won in 1980 and thinking about my grandfather who was listening on the porch and died in ’78,” McShane said. “When the Eagles won, my brothers and sisters said, ‘This would have been great if our dad could’ve seen this.’ There are lots of people who when they win, they’re thinking about the people they watched with for all these years. And it’s a celebration for them.”