Perched high above the field in the radio broadcast booth at Yankee Stadium, John Sterling had a largely unobstructed view of a national pastime every summer. Sterling called 5,631 Yankees games over parts of 35 seasons as the radio play-by-play voice of the team – 5,420 in the regular season and 211 in the postseason – along with five World Series championships. This includes every one of Derek Jeter’s 3,465 hits, all 652 saves by Mariano Rivera and every one of Bernie Williams’ 287 career home runs.
In mid-April of this year, Sterling officially retired from the job and was honored by the organization with a pregame ceremony, messages from former players and personnel and gifts to commemorate his career.
“When a pitcher would be ready in his final inning, Mel [Stottlemyre] would tell him, ‘Empty the tank in your final inning. Empty the tank,’” Sterling recalled. “I retired because my tank is empty. I have emptied it by being on the air 64 years, so that’s why I left and I’m really happy about it.”
Sterling had signed a contract extension with WFAN, the team’s flagship radio station since 2014, to continue calling Yankees games in 2022. This came with a reduced schedule that implemented less travel on the road but still included trips to Citi Field, Fenway Park and Oriole Park at Camden Yards, along with every postseason game.
During that season, Sterling made sure to travel to Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas to watch superstar outfielder Aaron Judge break the American League single-season record for home runs. This, of course, was a change for Sterling, who had been resisting calls to diminish his workload for several seasons. He had called 5,060 consecutive Yankees games and did not miss a sporting event for which he was scheduled in 38 seasons total, a streak that predates his days broadcasting in the Big Apple.
When Sterling was younger, he remembers listening to The Eddie Bracken Show on the radio, a Sunday afternoon comedy program that entertained audiences around the country. It was not Bracken, however, that stood out to him on the air. Instead, Sterling wanted to emulate the sonorant announcer who exclaimed, “Live from Hollywood, it’s The Eddie Bracken Show, along with Eddie’s special guests.” Sterling developed a resonant voice of his own and focused on doing what was necessary to make it behind the microphone.
“From that point on, I knew it was going to be on the air, and it was very important to me because I never had to worry in school – and I should have because I was a terrible student – but I knew what I was going to do,” Sterling said. “When I became an adolescent – 12, 13 – there was no question in my mind what I was going to do to make a living.”
Throughout his youth, Sterling consumed and scrutinized over various broadcasts and announcers, including Mel Allen, the former voice of the Yankees. It helped that he grew up a fan of the team and had an understanding of what he was listening to. Moreover, he learned how to equip his voice to thrive in different scenarios, something that would prove to be invaluable as his career proceeded.
“I had spent my life listening to every broadcaster I could listen to,” Sterling said. “My favorite was the then-WNEW-AM – that station was considered the darlings of Madison Avenue – and they had personalities and newscasters, and boy did I want to be on WNEW-AM.”
Although Sterling took classes at Moravian College and Boston University, he never finished his undergraduate studies after his mother passed away due to heart issues. As a result, he was left to fend for himself and ultimately returned to the classroom at Columbia University’s School of General Studies. One of those classes was taught by the program director of WNBC, in which Sterling earned an “A” grade. Soon thereafter, he compiled an audition tape and took a broadcasting job in Wellsville, N.Y. at the age of 19.
“The funny thing is it was a very small station, so the morning man got up before the crack of dawn and did the morning show,” Sterling said. “The midday guy was the general manager, so whenever he finished his show at 12 or 1 – whenever he finished it – he left to sell the merchants on the street, and my first day on the air, I was alone on the radio station. Can you imagine?”
From there, Sterling began to work at a variety of radio stations in the Northeast region of the country before landing a job as an overnight disc jockey in Providence, R.I. Once he began broadcasting in 1964 on WCBM in Baltimore, Md., he was an early adopter of new technology allowing for radio hosts to implement live callers on the air.
“I had been doing a general talk show in Baltimore on radio and TV, and I didn’t know what the heck I was talking about,” Sterling said. “I kept putting sports into it, so I finally got a little bit of a sports rep in Baltimore.”
As listeners became familiar with Sterling’s knowledge of and passion for sports, he began to elicit more opportunities in that realm despite the lack of an all-sports radio format. In particular, Sterling had been noticed by Baltimore Bullets broadcaster Jim Karvellas, and he eventually called a year of games for the team in addition to Baltimore Colts contests.
In 1971, Sterling returned to New York City to host a sports talk show on WMCA, a heralded means of employment that he believed represented what he should be doing. Additionally, he used vacation days to fill in for Frank Messer announcing New York Knicks games on radio for two seasons, including the championship 1972-73 campaign with stars such as Walt “Clyde” Frazier, Earl Monroe and Willis Reed on the court. Even though he was situated in New York City and also called games both for the Knicks and Morgan State University college football, he perceived his program as having a broad focus.
“I wanted my show to be about everything,” Sterling said. “I wanted to talk about every team, and I had an opening like that. So [sports radio has] evolved where WFAN came in and then every single city had to have a sports talk station. It’s a very good format to combat the music.”
When WMCA became the radio home of the New York Nets in 1975, Sterling continued to host his sports talk show and also became the team’s play-by-play announcer in its final season within the American Basketball Association. The team moved to Piscataway, N.J. beginning in the 1977-78 season and became the New Jersey Nets, but Sterling still remained on the broadcasts, nonetheless. While balancing both of these roles, he was also calling New York Islanders games at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Long Island but stopped working on those broadcasts after the 1977-78 season finished.
Sterling eventually departed New York to work in Atlanta, Ga. to host a sports call-in show on WSB Radio and also began his astonishing streak of perfect attendance. This started in 1981 while calling games for the Atlanta Hawks for Turner Sports on TBS. Once the baseball season commenced, he was on the air for Atlanta Braves games and translated his panache and ebullience to baseball games.
“Let’s face it – you’re looking at one great job after another,” Sterling said. “Anyone in the business would have loved the [W]MCA thing with all the sports I did, and then I got to Atlanta and I start doing the Hawks and Braves. Who wouldn’t want that job?”
When Sterling first started broadcasting Yankees games during the 1989 season, the team featured stars such as Don Mattingly, Rickey Henderson and Dave Righetti but struggled to consistently win games. The team ended up finishing last in the American League East division with a 74-87 record and continued to have losing seasons through 1992. From that point on though, the organization did not have another year under .500 while Sterling was behind the microphone, an unprecedented run of consistent success that continues to this day.
“I live life by the seat of my pants; I broadcast by the seat of my pants,” Sterling said. “Whatever happens, happens. When you think of it, my career has been at its best when the jobs are extemporaneous. Think of it – disc-jockey shows, talk shows and play-by-play. It’s all extemporaneous, and that’s what I do best.”
The origin behind Sterling’s maelstrom of signature home run calls that have punctuated blasts by The Bronx Bombers for most of his career was merely happenstance. Over the years, baseball fans have been treated to his creative ingenuity for stars such as Aaron Judge, Robinson Canó and Curtis Granderson among others. Early in the 2024 regular season, Sterling coined the phrase, “There is a Soto photo” for home runs hit by new superstar outfielder Juan Soto, and also began to sing, “He’s Juanderful, marvelous” on the air as well.
“There was no process,” Sterling said of his calls. “Bernie Williams hit a home run and I exclaimed, ‘Bern, Baby, Bern!,’ and it kind of took off from there. It was never expected to be a cottage industry where I had to do a home run call for everyone; however, it became so popular, I should have been doing that.”
Ahead of the 2018 major-league season, the Yankees traded for Miami Marlins outfielder and reigning National League most valuable player Giancarlo Stanton, who was coming off a season where he hit .281 with 59 home runs and 132 RBIs. The trade prompted Sterling to call Berlitz, a company that provides Italian lessons and classes to those looking to learn the language, in a quest to devise a signature home run call for the new slugger. It was a rare moment where he had scripted one of the exclamations ahead of time.
“I spoke to the Italian mistress, [and] I told her I wanted a phrase,” Sterling said. “I said, ‘You probably won’t be old enough to remember this, but a phrase like, ‘Ronzoni, sono buoni,’’ and she came up with, ‘Giancarlo, non si può stoparlo!,’ which means you can’t be stopped, so that kind of worked out. Anyway, the home run calls have been kind of a fun thing, and it was very good for my career.”
Sterling makes time to listen to sports programming and keep up with the latest news, something that has been easier without his broadcasting responsibilities. With a preponderance of young players entering the league, consistent roster alterations and expanded interleague play, part of his responsibility was to stay aware of everything going on.
“As every player comes up or every pitcher or whatever, I try to give a little scouting report to give an idea of what they can do and what they can’t do,” Sterling said. “And of course, Suzyn [Waldman] is great at all that [with] finding out the background of the player. I mean, she’s phenomenal at it.”
The partnership Sterling has forged with Waldman, the first voice to be heard on WFAN when it launched in July of 1987, permeated through the airwaves for many fans listening to broadcasts. As was customary over the years they worked together, she brought him onto the air with the resounding introduction, “Stepping up to the microphone is the voice of the New York Yankees: John Sterling.” Sterling would then follow the parlance by saying, “Well, Suzyn, I thank you,” before proceeding to discuss the matchup on the field.
Sterling first met Waldman while he was filling in for Pete Franklin on WFAN after he had suffered a heart attack. As a guest host for the week, Waldman quickly observed that Sterling did the entire four-hour show standing up while placing his hand over his right ear. Working together on the Yankees radio broadcasts for parts of 19 seasons, the duo has made an indelible impact in team history, resulting in a custom-made talking bobblehead giveaway, T-shirts and other memorabilia. The synergy and rapport they shared consistently permeated through the speakers, adding to the nuanced verve and nostalgia offered through the radio medium.
“We became buddies and then we were buddies all those years when she was working for WFAN as being the [Yankees] beat reporter,” Sterling said. “The only radio station I know of that would have a beat reporter like a beat writer, and she was great at that, and I knew she’d be great as my partner and she was, so it all worked out.”
Sterling officially announced his retirement in mid-April, concluding his run of 36 seasons serving as the radio play-by-play announcer of New York Yankees baseball. In the past, he had stated that he would never retire and knew that his voice remained strong enough to continue calling the games. While he acknowledged that he was nearing the end of his career during the team’s opening homestand, the decision to move on from the job took time to actualize.
“Looking back, I have a great boss in Chris Oliviero,” Sterling said. “He’s so nice to me, so good to me. I should have told him March 1 – I knew then. I should have told him March 15 – I knew then – but I figured I have to do the final exhibition game so I’m on the air, and they were going to Houston and Arizona. So I went on that trip, and afterwards [it was], ‘I don’t want to do this anymore – I’m tired. I’ve done this long enough.’”
Sterling explained that Oliviero would have allowed him to only call the home games, a proposition that initially did not sound bad.
“I just didn’t have the desire,” Sterling said. “Like today, to get up, make myself beautiful and go to Yankee Stadium to broadcast a game – I want to sit back, lie on my bed and watch hockey, basketball and baseball together.”
While Sterling is no longer present at Yankee Stadium during games, he continues to watch the Yankees from afar, along with a variety of different sports both locally and nationally. The grandeur, erudition and devotion to the craft made him the voice of several generations of baseball fans and woven into the fabric of the 121-year history of the New York Yankees.
Although Frank Sinatra’s hit song “Theme From New York, New York” is played at the conclusion of a home game regardless if the team has won or lost, the Yankees have added a new wrinkle into the mix. Following home victories, a sound bite plays over the stadium speakers with Sterling delivering his signature call declaring a Yankees win. The gesture further cements Sterling’s enduring legacy in The Bronx and underscores the eminence, deference and veneration for which he has garnered among sports fans worldwide.
“Suzyn told me about it when they were last home, so that’s a nice thing,” Sterling said. “End of the game, ‘Yankees win! Theeeee Yankees win!,’ so if it makes them happy, it makes me happy.”
Derek Futterman is a contributing editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, find him on X @derekfutterman.
