Man, now this is a column I hadn’t anticipated writing for some time, but as reality would have it…when you retire at age 85, the inevitability of a column like this coming sooner rather than later really does rear it’s ugly head.
Growing up a Yankees fan, a lot of my time following the team as a kid was spent watching the team’s games on WWOR-TV, channel 9 on weekday nights. In those days, I remember the announcers to be Bill White, Frank Messer & Phil Rizzuto…of which, Rizzuto, a former Yankees shortstop was the most memorable of the three. Each time a play of significance would occur, Rizzuto would exclaim his signature, “Holy Cow!” Though, for a large portion of the game, Rizzuto would talk about just about anything besides the game going on in front of him. But from a fan’s perspective, he was always entertaining.
Fast-forward to my adulthood and listening to games on the radio while in the car has become quite commonplace for me. Now not all sports come across well on the radio. Hockey specifically, can be tough to follow on the radio, as can basketball, but in my estimation, two sports were made for radio broadcasts, those being football and baseball. And as a Yankees fan, the one constant to all those New York Yankees broadcasts for the last 35 years has been the welcoming voice of John Sterling. John took over the play-by-play duties from Hank Greenwald to start the 1989 season at the age of 50. He wouldn’t miss a single broadcast for the next 30 years, compiling an incredible streak of 5,060 straight Yankees game broadcasts, which includes 4,851 regular season games and 209 playoff games, including 7 World Series appearances. Just as I mentioned about Phil Rizzuto above, John Sterling certainly found his own way to make all these broadcasts entertaining.
From a young age, growing up on Manhattan’s upper east side, once he became a sports broadcaster, there was one job he wanted more than anything else, and that’s the job he ultimately ended up manning for a generation of Yankees fans. To the older Yankees fans like my grandmother, Mel Allen was their guy. I can always remember her complaining about John’s style, specifically telling me how she hated his, “Yankees win, the Yankees win!” Looking back all these years later, in those days, I primarily watched the TV broadcasts, so I really didn’t know what she was talking about, but after getting used to his style, I really embraced his mannerisms.
Years later, he came up with specific home run calls for each batter, starting it all off with one for Bernie Williams by saying “Bern baby, Bern!” Some of his home run calls are the stuff of legend…”That ball is high, it is far, it is GONE! A Judgian blast! All rise, here comes the Judge!” while others make no sense whatsoever, like how he would say, “A Stantonian blast! Giancarlo, non si può stopparlo!” — which, in Italian means “Giancarlo, he cannot be stopped!”, to which even John’s co-host, Suzyn Waldman questioned that Giancarlo is not Italian. Clearly to John Sterling, that did not matter, because just as I had stated about Phil Rizzuto earlier, John Sterling understood that longevity came with entertainment, and an entertainer…John certainly was!
When you think about it, John Sterling called every single game of the careers of the following Yankees: Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Bernie Williams & Brett Gardner. He announced games featuring a veritable who’s who of notable Yankees like Don Mattingly, Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens, Cecil Fielder, Ichiro Suzuki, Chen-Ming Wang, Randy Johnson, Jason Giambi, Tino Martinez, Scott Brosius, Hideki Matsui, CC Sabathia, Orlando “El Duque” Hernández, Wade Boggs, Jimmy Key, Dave Righetti, John Wetteland, Mark Teixeira, Giancarlo Stanton & Aaron Judge just to name a few. He also called perfect games for David Wells, David Cone & Diego Germán along with no hitters from Jim Abbott, Dwight Gooden & Corey Kluber.
As has been said, he was the voice of the New York Yankees for a generation of Yankees fans. Unfortunately, that moniker had already been handed out, but it doesn’t mean he’s not equally deserving of the title. An interesting story I just recently heard is that when current Yankees Manager, Aaron Boone hit his Game 7, 11th inning home run off of Red Sox knuckleballer, Tim Wakefield to win the series and send the Yankees to the World Series in 2003, in those days, John Sterling only called the even-numbered innings in extra innings, so he wasn’t on the radio to call Boone’a home run. However, years later, he handed Boone a recording he made for him of what that call would have sounded like, had he been on the call. Even now, following a Yankees victory with Boone as Manager, he greets his players coming in from the field with high-fives while proclaiming, “Yankees win, theeeee Yankees WIN!” just as Sterling did on the radio.
Over the years, John became so much more than just the radio voice of the New York Yankees, he also shared the duties of being the emcee for Yankees’ Old Timers’ Day introductions (with TV play-by-play broadcaster, Michael Kay) and any number retirement & Monument Park enshrinement ceremonies at Yankee Stadium. He was also often called upon to host shows on the YES Network like the Yankeeography series. For the lack of a better term, you could certainly make the case for John Sterling being Mr. Yankee. And though he has yet to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame, having never been awarded the Ford C. Frick Award for all his contributions to the game of baseball from a broadcaster’s position, he has won 12 Sports Emmy Awards and was given the Pride of the Yankees Award in 2025 at the team’s annual Welcome Home Dinner
As I stated earlier, when he became a sports broadcaster, he had one job he wanted above all and managed to get that job & worked it for the next 35 years. When someone holds off retirement until the age of 85, it’s clear that they truly loved what they did for a living, and as the saying goes, if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. I think it’s fair to say that John Sterling was the personification of that saying.
Thank you John, your personality and dedication to the team we all love will be sorely missed.
Marcs Two Cents 
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