Tuesday, April 16, 2024

John Sterling Departs Yankees Radio Booth

Yesterday, the New York Yankees announced that John Sterling would retire from their radio broadcast team effective immediately due to "health reasons."

Sterling, 85, had been calling Yankees games on the radio since 1989 and, at one point, for a 30-season stretch had called 5,531 consecutive regular season and post-season Yankees games until snapping his streak shortly before his 81st birthday in 2019 due to illness

A New York native, Sterling began his broadcasting career with the NBA's Baltimore Bullets in 1970. Sterling also lent his voice to the New Jersey Nets, the New York Islanders of the NHL, the New York Raiders of the short-lived World Hockey Association, the New York Stars of the equally short-lived World Football League as well as at the collegiate level at Morgan State University. In the 1980's, Sterling moved to Atlanta where he was the voice of both the NBA's Atlanta Hawks and got his first taste of MLB as the voice of the Atlanta Braves.

While Sterling will be best remembered for his association with the Yankees, I will always remember his call of the late Rick Camp's home run in the Braves 16-13 lost to the New York Mets in 19 innings on July 4, 1985. When Camp, a relief pitcher with a lifetime batting average of .074 over nine big league seasons with Atlanta, came up to bat in the bottom of the 18th, Sterling told Ernie Johnson after Camp fouled off an 0-1 pitch, "Ernie, if he hits a homerun to tie this game this game will be certified as absolutely the nuttiest in the history of baseball."

Two pitches later, Camp went deep, and I'll let John Sterling tell the rest of the story.

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