John Sterling, whose tenure as the New York Yankees’ radio voice spanned more than three decades and five World Series wins, and whose bombastic delivery and idiosyncratic catchphrases earned him a nomination to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, died Monday at the age of 87.
Sterling’s death was announced by WFAN, which did not say where he died or specify a cause. Sterling had suffered a heart attack in January.
Sterling became the Yankees’ play-by-play announcer in 1989 and spent 36 years in the position, calling 5,060 consecutive games (plus 211 more in the postseason) until he missed his first game in July of 2019. He called 5,631 Yankees games, including eight World Series appearances. By the time he retired in 2024, he was known as “The Voice of the Yankees.”
His run covered one of the Yankees’ greatest eras. He called every single game of Derek Jeter’s 20-year career and every pitch thrown by Mariano Rivera. He emceed the uniform number retirement ceremonies for Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte, Bernie Williams and Joe Torre, among others. He was there when Aaron Judge crushed his American League single-season record 62nd home run in 2022.
“He’s synonymous with those five championships (1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2009),” longtime broadcast partner Michael Kay said. “If you’re coming into people’s homes, at the beach, the pool or their car, and you’re constantly telling them good news — it made him part of the Yankee firmament. He became a part of forever, because those championships are never going to go away.”
Sterling was married to Jennifer Sterling for 12 years. They had four children: Abagail and triplets Veronica, Bradford and Derek.
The job was a childhood dream for Sterling, born John Sloss, who grew up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side as a Yankees fan listening to games on the radio and trying to learn from broadcasters of all types.
“I am a very blessed human being,” Sterling said in a statement announcing his retirement. “I have been able to do what I wanted, broadcasting for 64 years. As a little boy growing up in New York as a Yankees fan, I was able to broadcast the Yankees for 36 years.”
Sterling, a member of the New York State Broadcasters Hall of Fame, featured a distinctive baritone and drew adoration and criticism alike for his eccentricities and his unabashed Yankees fandom that resonated in his broadcasts. He marked victories with a thunderous “The Yankees win,” perhaps his most popular line. He personalized home run calls for players, starting with “Burn, Baby, Burn!” for Williams. He eventually had calls for every player, including “An A-bomb from A-Rod” for Alex Rodriguez and “Robbie Cano, don’t you know?” for Robinson Cano.
Though Sterling was almost exclusively on the radio, nearly every day he would dress as if he were going on TV, wearing a tailored suit, tie and dress shoes.
“It’s like he gets in that chair and it shoots life through him,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He’s at home when he’s in his office. It’s a remarkable career, to be able to do it like that and as long as he did it. He’s left quite a mark on this organization and the game of baseball.”
Sterling’s peculiar speech patterns included sing-song inflections and the tendency to exaggerate the word “the.” Before a pitcher delivered the ball, Sterling would say, “Thuuhhh pitch.” After the final out of a victory, it was, “Thuuhhh Yankees win!”
“He was so witty, smart,” Judge said. “As a kid, you always heard it. You watch old Yankees games. You hear the old broadcasts.”
Humble beginnings
Sterling said he grew up playing sports and wasn’t an exceptional student. Much of his free time revolved around listening to the radio, sometimes mimicking different announcers. He knew early on he had an unusually deep voice and, “I learned I could use it to adapt to different radio styles,” he told The New York Times in 2011.
Sterling studied at Moravian College and Boston University, but when his mother died at 47, he returned to New York City and took classes at Columbia University’s School of General Studies. In 1961, he got his first radio job at a small station in Wellsville, N.Y., approximately 60 miles south of Buffalo, and around that time, he changed his name to Sterling. After a stop to work mornings in Providence, R.I., he went to Baltimore, beginning to blend sports talk into his general show, and getting chances to broadcast games for the Baltimore Colts and Bullets.
In 1971, he returned to New York City as a full-timer at WMCA.
“He would hang up on people and berate them: ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about!’” said Jim Rosenhaus, a Cleveland Guardians radio broadcaster. “It was awesome. We’d go to school the next day (and say), ‘Did you hear what John Sterling said last night?’ There was barely any sports talk back then, but he’d get on and just shred people.”
He also began working New Jersey Nets and New York Islanders games and started honing his unique style, giving on-air nicknames to players (Bernard King was “B.B. King”) and creating catchphrases (“Goal! Islanders goal! Islanders goal!”).
“If you didn’t know first names on the team,” Rosenhaus said, “you had no idea what he was talking about. Going back to the ABA days, their teams were phenomenal, led by Dr. J. His play-by-play was, ‘Doc’ has it at the top of the key, down low to ‘The Whopper,’ outside to ‘Super John,’ the ‘BT Express’ has it now.’ … If you didn’t know who these guys were, then you were lost.”
When Sterling moved to Atlanta in 1981, he joined TBS and WSB Radio and began broadcasting for the Atlanta Braves and the Hawks. He became known for punctuating Dominique Wilkins’ dunks with flair: “Dominique is Magnifique!”
The Yankees years
In 1989, Sterling took over as the Yankees’ play-by-play broadcaster for WABC. His stint began auspiciously with an encounter with the late owner George Steinbrenner in a hotel elevator in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Steinbrenner lifted a finger and pointed it at Sterling’s chest.
“It was just the two of us,” Sterling said, “and George said to me, the way he talks, ‘I just want you to know that I always wanted you to do Yankees games.’”
That started Sterling’s streak, which astounded his peers.
“I never once turned on the radio and said, ‘Boy, John sounds tired.’ He always brought his ‘A’ game,” Blue Jays and ESPN broadcaster Dan Shulman told Yankees magazine in 2024.
“Showing up to perform virtually every single day since 1989, he was a pillar for Yankees fans who relied on the comfort and familiarity of his voice to be the soundtrack of their spring, summer and fall,” the Yankees said in a statement upon his retirement. “Given the tremendous care he had for the team and his performance on the air, it’s not a stretch to believe that our fans live and die with every pitch because John Sterling did the same.”
Over that time, Sterling spent 10 seasons in the booth working alongside Kay. In 2005, Suzyn Waldman took over as his color analyst and remains in the position. The best-friends dynamic between Sterling and Waldman became an instant obsession for Yankees fans, who, in addition to hearing details about the game, would get their inside jokes and references to Broadway musicals or old-time movies.
Occasionally, Sterling would draw the ire of listeners and critics for starting home run calls too soon, only for them to become long fly-ball outs or have wrong details due to deteriorating hearing and eyesight.
He was also known for refusing to adapt to the times. He didn’t have a smartphone or use the internet. On the road, he would seek out that city’s newspaper in the morning and travel with books, typically suspense or crime novels. He had several TVs mounted on the walls of his apartment in Edgewater, N.J., and he would sometimes watch several games at a time.
“He’s one of a kind,” Waldman said. “There will never be another person like that, to have that kind of love for a team and that kind of love for his fan base.”
Sterling’s streak ended on July 4, 2019, when he fell ill and missed three games.
“Think about that,” Mets broadcaster Howie Rose said at the time. “Some Yankees fans have never heard anyone but John’s voice for the entirety of their life.”
Even players were astounded by Sterling’s commitment. In 2000, Sterling’s wife gave birth to their triplets before Game 2 of the American League Championship Series. Early in the day, Sterling was at the hospital in New Jersey to witness their birth. Later that night, he called the Yankees’ victory over the Seattle Mariners and boarded the team’s charter to Washington. On the jet, third baseman Scott Brosius saw Sterling. He was baffled.
“John,” Brosius said, “didn’t you just have triplets? Why are you on the flight?”
Sterling shrugged.
“Nothing more I can do,” he said.
Sterling’s health would begin to falter later in his career. In 2020, he missed games while recovering from a blood infection. Soon after, his workload would begin to lighten, and traveling would take a toll on him. In 2023, a foul ball zipped over the netting behind the plate and struck Sterling in the broadcast booth, caroming off his table and leaving a cut over his eyebrow. Sterling continued to call the game.
In 2024, Sterling retired — twice. In early April, Sterling felt run-down after the Yankees opened the season with trips to the Houston Astros and the Arizona Diamondbacks. He abruptly ended his career on April 15 of that year, and the team held an on-field, pregame ceremony in his honor about a week later.
“I hate packing, unpacking, traveling, getting to places, et cetera, et cetera,” he said. “But the games themselves, they’re as easy for me to do as anything I do.”
BUT STERLING RETURNED TO THE YANKEES’ BOOTH FOR THE FINAL WEEK OF THE REGULAR SEASON AND THE PLAYOFFS UNTIL THE YANKEES LOST TO THE LOS ANGELES DODGERS IN GAME 5 OF THE WORLD SERIES AT YANKEE STADIUM. HE THEN HOSTED A WEEKLY RADIO SHOW ON WABC THROUGHOUT MUCH OF 2025.
“How lucky can you be, for people to celebrate what you do for a living?” he said.
(C) The New York Times
