John Sterling Was the Voice of The Yankees; But Many Fondly Remember Him for Calling the Rick Camp HR

This morning, former New York Yankees radio broadcaster John Sterling passed away at the age of 87.

Sterling was the voice of the Bronx Bombers for more than 35 years before health issues forced him to abruptly retire early in the 2024 season although he would return for the post-season to say a proper goodbye. The Yankees would win the AL pennant fall short against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.

Naturally, Sterling is remembered for his personalized home run calls. To name but a few:

Alex Rodriguez ("An A-Bomb for A-Rod!!!")

Curtis Granderson ("The Grandy Man Can!!! Oh, The Grandy Man Can!!!)

Melky Cabrera ("The Melk Man delivers!!!)

Gleyber Torres ("It's Gleyber Day!!!)

Aaron Judge (All rise!!! Here comes The Judge!!!)

He is also remembered for his emphatic declaration after every Yankees victory, "Yankees win!!! Theeee Yankees win!!!"

Alas, this didn't go over very well in Boston especially when the Yankees beat the Red Sox.

But John Sterling's calls were, well, sterling.

Yet when I think of John Sterling, I think of his time with the Atlanta Braves during the early to mid 1980's. 

To be precise, I think of one game in particular. It took place on the Fourth of July 1985 between the Braves and the New York Mets. The Mets were leading 11-10 in the bottom of the 18th inning with the Braves one out away from defeat that appeared all but certain. Because coming to bat was relief pitcher Rick Camp, a career .074 hitter.

From here, I'll let John Sterling and Ernie Johnson set the scene.

John Sterling: Now two outs and no one on, the Mets are waving their outfielders in. The whole Met team waving their outfielders in. 

Here's Rick Camp the game on the line, two outs and no one on base.

And at least he took a good cut and followed it off.

Ernie, if he hits a home run to tie this game....

Ernie Johnson: Laughter!!!  

John Sterling: This game will be certified as absolutely the nuttiest in the history of baseball.

Ernie Johnson: Well, they could go to another pitcher but after 18 innings they've used just about everybody. 

John Sterling: Well, the only three guys left are Bedrosian, Perez, and Zane Smith. 

There's a strike 0 and 2.

Ernie Johnson: So they've researched that and they figure that Camp is the best hitter of the three left.

John Sterling: Right! It'll be an 0-2 pitch.

And he hits it to deep left!!! Heep goes back!!! And it's gone!!!

Holy cow!!! Oh, my goodness!!! 

I don't believe it!!! I don't believe it!!!

Rick Camp!!! Rick Camp!!!

I don't believe it!!!

Remember what I just said. If he hits a home run. That certifies this game as the wackiest, wildest, most improbable game in history.

On an 0-2 pitch, Rick Camp hit it over the left centerfield wall. I don't believe it!!!

If you only knew on the Braves, we kid Rick Camp about his hitting more than anything.

Ernie!!!

Ernie Johnson: Nobody can believe it!!! 

John Sterling: Camp makes it 11-11!!! His first major league homer!!!

I mean that is the most improbable act!!! Let's see it again!!! Ernie!!!

Ernie Johnson: We got to look at this another 50 times!!! Back goes Heep. It's out of here. 

John Sterling: And it hit the football bleachers. 

I mean if you told me John Sterling's gonna run for President and win that would be any more improbable. And I got to tell you that's improbable.

Unbelievable!!!

Well, John Sterling being President of the United States doesn't sound like a such a bad thing.

But it illustrates the odds of Rick Camp hitting a home run moments after Sterling mused about such a possibility. Such a notion was inconceivable. And yet it happened.

The serendipity and sheer joy in John Sterling's voice is why this is one of my favorite baseball clips which I play several times a year. It never fails to improve my mood even on this sad day. R.I.P.

On Being Ignored at Restaurants

On Friday evening after work, I ended up walking all the way home from South Station to Cambridge due to prolonged delays on the T.

While walking along Hampshire Street, I saw the S&S Restaurant across the street, a sight I have seen many times in the nearly five years I have been back in this area. I made a note to myself that I needed to check this place out. It has been in business in Cambridge for over a century.

Then yesterday, while reading a Facebook post from a friend, I learned that the S&S Restaurant would be closing next month. So, I decided to go there this afternoon.

As I was by myself, I was offered a seat at the bar. However, no seats were available at the bar. So, after a few minutes, I was given a table by one of the windows. This was at 2:40 p.m.

It was the last time anyone from the restaurant acknowledged my existence. At 3 p.m., I got up from the table and left the premises. 

The place had a crowd but was not busy. Indeed, I heard someone from the restaurant state that things had "died down." Under the circumstances, I think 20 minutes is more than a reasonable amount of time to wait for service. Five minutes into my wait, I had a feeling something was amiss. I'm inclined to think that I was deliberately being ignored. For what reason, I cannot say. But sometimes you just know something is up and it isn't good.

Well, if they don't want my business then that's fine. I'll spend my money elsewhere. I would have liked to have shared my experience about dining at the S&S Restaurant. Perhaps it would have conjured up childhood memories about dining at the Hoito in Thunder Bay. But since I didn't do any dining, this has conjured up other thoughts.

This is not the first time I have been ignored at a restaurant. In recent years, I have been similarly ignored at The Burren in Somerville's Davis Square as well as at the former R.F. O'Sullivan & Sons also in Somerville. When this occurs, I'll just leave quietly like I did today. However, the latter occurrence resulted in a confrontation as I was leaving. When I told the waitress I had been waiting for service for 20 minutes she told me, "We're a busy restaurant." To which I retorted, "Apparently too busy to serve me," and walked out. A short time later, R.F. O'Sullivan & Sons closed their doors.

In most of these instances, I cannot help but think these incidents are more a product of malevolence than incompetence. If this is the case, then it's not the end of the world. I simply won't do any further business with the establishment since they don't seem to want mine in the first place. In most instances, there is a Plan B whether it is finding another establishment or just going back home. 

Nevertheless, it is one of the occasional annoyances of life that I come across more often than I would like. It's the sort of thing which makes me lose my appetite for dining out.

Celtics Blow 3-1 Lead to 76ers in First Round of NBA Playoffs

The Boston Celtics had the Philadelphia 76ers where they wanted them with a 3-1 lead in the First Round of the NBA playoffs.

Tonight, the Celtics' season is over after the 76ers bested them 109-100 in Game 7. Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey led the 76ers' offense with 34 and 30 points, respectively.

It didn't help the Celtics that Jayson Tatum could not play due to a knee injury. Yet truth be told, the Celtics lost their mojo in a fourth quarter collapse in Game 5 and never truly got it back.

The Celtics owned the second-best record in the NBA Eastern Conference, and it wasn't enough. The Sixers now advance to the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the New York Knicks.

It's been a bad week for Boston sports. Less than 24 hours ago, the Boston Bruins were knocked out of the first round of the NHL playoffs by the Buffalo Sabres although the Bruins were thoroughly outclassed in this contest. The Red Sox are still reeling over the abrupt dismissal of Alex Cora a week ago. Meanwhile, The Sword of Damocles hangs over the head of New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel due to his alleged affair with NFL sports reporter Dianna Russini who was forced to resign from The Athletic. 

Well, there is never any shortage of drama when it comes to Boston sports.

Bad Signs in JP

 

For as long as I have been in the Boston area, I have attended the Wake Up the Earth Festival which is held on the first Saturday in May in Jamaica Plain. Sponsored by a non-profit organization called Spontaneous Celebrations, the first such festival took place in 1979 after the community in both Jamaica Plain and neighboring Roxbury saw to it that the I-95 didn't raze these areas.

When I arrived in Boston in the spring of 2000, JP was my first home, and the Wake Up The Earth Festival was among the first bit of fun I had living here. After 8 years living in the Fenway, I would move back to JP and call it home for a decade before I left for New York City. Fortunately, my exile was only temporary.

I mention all of this because the Wake Up the Earth Festival is a blend of food, music and a hodge-podge of left-wing causes typically of an environmental nature. However, back in 2024, there were a whole bunch of signs concerning the Palestinians highlighted by a mural called "Palestinian Loss of Land 1947 to Present". 

Last year, following the release of the remaining hostages, there were a few small Palestinian flags, but it was far less noticeable. The same could not be said this year. One of the first things I saw was a huge sign which read "JP for Palestine".

There was another sign from Massachusetts Peace Action which read "We All Agree - No Taxes to Starve Palestinian Children". It's the sort of dubious claim which gets Jews stabbed in the U.K.

It must be said that this matter is front in center due to the War in Iran. There was an exhibit called "Eyes Wide Open - A Place to Reflect on the True Cost(s) of War" sponsored by Veterans for Peace, Massachusetts Peace Action and several other organizations. A basketball court was strewn with shoes and backpacks representing the schoolgirls killed in an U.S. airstrike at the outset of the war. There were signs which read "Remember the Children" and "In memory of the Iranian schoolgirls who were killed in an U.S. airstrike 02-28-2026".  

Indeed, those schoolgirls did not nothing to deserve their fate. The same can be said for the 118 children who were killed by the Iranian government during protests in January 2026. But where is the sign for these children? The people responsible for this exhibit are here to pillory the U.S. and Israel while turning a blind eye to the savagery of the Iranian regime not to mention its proxies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

What worries me is the possibility that future gatherings of the Wake Up the Earth Festival could devolve into overt support for Hamas and Hezbollah accompanied by the calling for the murder of Jews (re: Zionists) as we are witnessing in the U.K.

Don't say it can't happen here because it certainly can.

Is Starmer's Intervention Against Anti-Semitism After Golders Green Stabbing Too Little, Too Late?

(YouTube screenshot)

Following the stabbings of two Jewish men in the London neighborhood of Golders Green earlier this week, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared the following:

Of course, we protect freedom of speech and peaceful protest in this country. But if you are marching with people wearing pictures of paragliders without calling it out, you are venerating the murder of Jews. If you stand alongside people who say globalize the Intifada, you are calling for terrorism against Jews and people who use that phrase should be prosecuted.

I watched Starmer's full remarks. He said all the right things:

And yet the truth is while we can and we will bring the full power of the state to bear on this, this is about society every bit as much as it is about security. Moments like this we often say, 'This is not Britain,' That these attacks are an affront to British values, to British tolerance, British decency. But they keep happening, don't they?

And so today, instead, I will simply say that our values are not a gift handed generation to generation. They are something we earn each day through action. They come from us. 

Anti-Semitism is an old, old hatred. History shows that the roots are deep and, if you turn away, it grows back. Yet far too many people in this country diminish it. They either don't see it or they don't want to see it. 

Given his efforts to root out anti-Semitism when he succeeded Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader, I am inclined to believe him. Yet this be may very well be too little, too late. 

When Starmer visited Golders Green prior to his remarks, he was heckled with some calling him "Starmer, The Jew Harmer!!!"

Of course, the surge in anti-Semitism in the U.K. didn't begin under Starmer's watch. But it has certainly accelerated. Consider this summary by Jonathan Sacerdoti:

This comes after the Yom Kippur terror attack at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester, where a car was driven at people outside a synagogue and worshippers were stabbed, leaving Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz dead and three others seriously injured. It comes after four Hatzola ambulances, run by a Jewish volunteer emergency service, were set alight in Golders Green, oxygen cylinders exploding and nearby windows shattering. It comes after petrol bottles and a brick were thrown at Finchley Reform Synagogue; after an attempted firebombing at Kenton United Synagogue; after counter-terror police arrested eight people over suspected arson plots against Jewish-linked sites; after a suspected security incident near the Israeli embassy in Kensington Gardens; after an arson attack on a memorial wall in Golders Green; after Jewish schoolboys were assaulted at Belsize Park station; after a Jewish man was attacked by teenagers in Hendon; after a Jewish father was abused on the Northern line; after Israelis were attacked in Leicester Square for speaking Hebrew; after a man in Wembley was asked whether he was Jewish and then punched in the face; after Jews leaving a West London synagogue were abused and assaulted; and after Gail’s in Archway was daubed with red paint and anti-Israel slogans because a bakery had somehow become another acceptable proxy for Jewishness.

The list is ugly because the facts are ugly. 

Synagogues. Ambulances. Schoolboys. Restaurants. Shops. Tube stations. Memorial walls. Men in their seventies. Men wearing kippot. People speaking Hebrew in public.

One could make a case that the U.K. is the most dangerous place on Earth to be a Jew. In which case, the U.K. might as well as be Gaza.

In order for Starmer to effectively combat anti-Semitism, he will need to borrow a phrase from one of his predecessors, Tony Blair. Starmer will need to "say what he means and mean what he says" and punish those who support violence against British Jews.

The problem, of course, is that anti-Semitism is now tolerated in the U.K. Which means Starmer would have to stand firm against any pushback up to and including the risk of Labour supporters defecting to the Green Party and their openly anti-Semitic leader Zack Polanski (despite the fact he is Jewish).

Indeed, following the Golders Green attack, Polanski made a retweet which accused the authorities of excessive conduct against the suspect without mentioning the attack. Polanski would apologize for the tweet which he said was made "in haste" but he did not condemn the attack itself. This is not surprising considering several Green Party candidates have called for violence against "Zionists". It would seem that British voters who want to kill Jews have a home in the Green Party.

So, it remains to be seen if Starmer will have the wherewithal to mean what he says about combatting anti-Semitism in the U.K.

And even if he does, anti-Semitism might be so deeply entrenched in British society that even the full force of the state might be powerless in excising it  

Janet Mills' Disheartening & Distressing Decision to Drop Out of Maine Democratic Senate Primary

 

This morning, Maine Governor Janet Mills suspended her campaign for the U.S. Senate paving the way for Graham Platner to be bestowed with the Democratic Party nomination.

I find Mills' decision disheartening and distressing.

By most accounts, she was a competent, reasonably liked governor. But apparently competence isn't what Democratic Party primary voters want these days. They want red meat (ethically sourced, of course), easy answers and social media clicks. In this respect, Democratic Party voters are no different than the MAGA they purport to despise. This is disheartening.

Aside from being manifestly unqualified for the job, Platner is also a vile anti-Semite, and it would seem Maine Democrats don't care. Indeed, they might very well like him because of it. That is distressing.

Loathe as I am to support a Republican in the age of Trump, if I were living in Maine I would cast my ballot for Susan Collins. It should be said that Collins was among the 7 Republican Senators who voted to impeach Trump during his second impeachment proceeding in 2021 following the events of January 6th and did not vote for Trump in 2024. That she voted to impeach Trump in 2021 and publicly refused to vote for him in 2024 and managed not to have a primary challenger is no small feat.

Trump certainly has no love lost for Collins. A year ago, Trump berated her for not supporting his tariffs against Canada. Last July, Trump took Collins to task for not supporting the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. Back in January, Trump made a profanity laced phone call to Collins when she voted in favor of a Democratic war powers resolution after Trump initiated military action in Venezuela.

Of course, Trump is mercurial. Last month, during a FOX News interview, he called Collins "a good person". Maine Democrats claimed it was proof that Collins was on Trump's team.

At this point, questions remain. Will Maine voters will have the good sense to recognize Collins' independence from Trump and her ability to bring home the bacon? Or will Main voters choose an untested populist demagogue who appeals to people's basest prejudices out of spite not only for Trump but out of spite for competence and getting the job done?

If Janet Mills' competence wasn't enough then who can say it will help Collins?

If that is the case, then I can only hope there are enough decent voters in Maine who will not be fooled by a man who covers a Nazi tattoo because they will see Graham Platner for the bigot that he is.

Concert for Hope & Unity Cancelled in Australia Because Greek Chorus Won't Sing With Jewish Choir

"A Concert for Hope and Unity" which was to take place next month in Sydney, Australia to benefit the victims of the Bondi Beach Chanukah massacre has been cancelled.

Would you like to know why the concert was cancelled?

Because the Australian Hellenic Choir refused to share the same stage with the Sydney Jewish Choral Society. They, ahem, "politically objected."

The proverbial Greek chorus cannot bring itself to help the innocent victims of an act of terrorism because they are Jews and will not share a stage with their fellow choir singers because they are Jews.

The Australian Hellenic Choir does not see members of the Sydney Jewish Choral Society as human beings. So long as this attitude prevails, there can be no hope and no unity.

I wish I were surprised. After all, the greatest surge of anti-Semitism since the end of WWII took place after Jews were massacred on October 7th, including in Australia. So, why would Australia care about the murder of Jews on their own soil any more than they would about the murder of Jews in Israel?

This is yet another example of Jews being expelled from polite society for being Jews. Of course, this is hardly confined to Australia. We are seeing it in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. including the stabbing attack today in the Golders Green section of London.

It is difficult to have much in the way of optimism because things will get worse for Jews the world over and it will likely take years, perhaps decades and maybe even centuries before it gets better.