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'I knew I was going to be on the air': John Sterling's long journey to famed radio voice of the Yankees
Following John Sterling's passing at age 87 Monday, much of the coverage centered on the 5,426 regular season and 225 postseason games he called for the New York Yankees on the radio from 1989 to 2024. That's an amazing run, especially considering the 5,060 consecutive games he called from 1989 to 2019. And he meant a huge deal to that team and their fans, as shown in a team statement around his initial retirement in April 2024:
“What makes John a goliath of the sports broadcasting world was how sacred he held his role as voice of the Yankees. 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. 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.”
Here's a video tribute to Sterling the team put out Tuesday:
But while his decades calling Yankees' games were quite probably Sterling's peak professional accomplishment, it's the path he took there that was particularly remarkable. To start with, Sterling (who was born John Sloss in New York City on July 4, 1938, grew up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and often attended games at Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds with friends his age when he was as young as nine) told Andrew Marchand in 2018 that he collected information on entertainers such as Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra growing up, and did so because he knew he’d some day be a broadcaster. There, Sterling said “I fell in love with music and sports when I was a very little boy and, as odd it sounds, I knew when I was nine, 10, that I was going to be on the air.”
Sterling definitely got himself on the air, but through an unconventional route. After high school, he enrolled at Moravian College in Pennsylvania, then at Boston University. He didn’t stay for long at either, though, telling Bill Pennington of The New York Times in 2011 that his mother’s death from a heart attack at 47 left him “rudderless.” Following her death, he’d return to New York and take classes in Columbia University’s School of General Studies (including one taught by the WNBC program director, where he received an A), but would leave school for good at 19 to take a radio job at a small station in Wellsville, NY. His on-air career started there on Feb. 1, 1960, and it would carry on for more than six decades.
From there, Sterling would work in a variety of roles at radio stations across the northeast. His first notable breaks came with a morning rock show in Providence, RI and then a general talk show in Baltimore, MD. He told Pennington “I had no idea what I was talking about in Baltimore, but I knew how to do a talk show. I argued with nuts who called up.” Some of that involved sports, and that led to Sterling getting broadcasting roles with the Baltimore Colts of the NFL, the Baltimore Bullets of the NBA, and the Morgan State University football team. (He’d actually hold that latter role from 1971 through 1978, even after he’d moved back to New York City.)
1971 saw Sterling return to New York with WMCA, including a fill-in role for Bob Grant on the night that proved to be the night of the Attica prison riot. His work there got him more attention, and he landed a full-time sports talk show on WMCA the next year. Throughout the 1970s, he’d call a variety of New York sports teams’ games as well, including the Islanders and Nets, but also the New York Stars of the World Football League and the New York Raiders of the World Hockey Association. And he’d make his first connection with the Yankees during that span, serving as a pre-game host for radio broadcasts and a co-host alongside famed radio voice Mel Allen for cable broadcasts.
Sterling then became a key figure on the first all-sports radio network, Enterprise Radio Network (created by Scott Rasmussen, son of ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen) around its January 1981 debut. But while that network had a lot of talent (including interns Kevin Harlan and Sean McDonough), it didn’t have the advertising necessary to stay afloat, and collapsed that September. That led to Sterling moving to Atlanta, first to host a sports talk show, then to call the Hawks (beginning that year) and Braves (beginning the next year). He’d call their games on radio, and also occasionally on TV with Turner Sports. Despite that coming with a workload of 244 regular season games a year, Sterling didn’t miss a broadcast for either team during his time covering them, which spanned 1981-89 for the Hawks and 1982-87 for the Braves.
In 1989, Sterling got the chance to take over as the Yankees’ radio voice. That opportunity came thanks to WABC general manager Fred Winehouse. Winehouse had listened to Sterling’s 1970s work in New York and had kept up with his broadcasting since thanks to some of his Braves games being on TBS, so that led to Sterling getting the job “without an audition,” as he told Chris Kirschner of The Athletic in 2020. And, after missing two games in his inaugural season due to his sister’s death, he’d call that famed streak of 5,060 consecutive games from 1989 to July 2019.
Sterling’s time with the Yankees was remarkable. Beyond just being there for all those games (including five World Series victories), his work and unique style, especially his unique home run calls for various Yankees' stars, won him many admirers and laudatory nicknames. Some of those included as “Pa Pinstripe” from Bob Raissman of The New York Daily News and “the soundtrack of New York City” from Mike Francesa. And even fans of rival teams took note of Sterling. Famed sportswriter Joe Posnanski, who grew up as a Cleveland fan, touched on that well in a tribute Tuesday:
I wasn’t supposed to like John Sterling, the announcer. If I did, he was probably doing it wrong.
See, here’s the thing about hometown baseball announcers: Their styles are never the point. Yes, I might prefer the poetry of a Vin Scully or the homespun wit of Ernie Harwell or the improvisational exuberance of Jason Benetti, but my Cleveland hometown announcer was Herb Score, who started every game by saying, “It’s a beautiful day for baseball,” and then would sometimes forget to give the score for the next five or six innings. But that didn’t matter to me. He was mine! He was ours! For summer after summer, every good thing that happened to the Indians, every bad thing, every pitching change, every failed bunt, every Andre Thornton homer, came through the voice of Herb Score (well, not EVERY thing — he didn’t do every inning — but you get the point). I didn’t care what any Red Sox fan or Orioles fan or Brewers fan thought about Herb. He wasn’t for them. He was for us.
John Sterling understood that as well as anybody. I’m not saying every Yankees fan loved his operatic, celebratory, corny, and over-the-top style; I heard from plenty who did not. But more did, and even those who didn’t came to think of him the way I imagine Philadelphia vegans feel about Pat’s cheesesteak or humorless Chicagoans feel about Second City. Sterling was New York. He was the Yankees. The team doesn’t feel the same without him.
John Sterling kept his enthusiasm. That’s the other thing. When people ask me what I admire most about Bruce Springsteen, the performer, it is that he gives his all every time he performs “Born to Run,” even though he’s performed it 10,000 times by now, even though there can’t be much juice left to squeeze out of it. John Sterling gave his all to every “Giancarlo, non si può de stoparlo” call. He reached deep within himself when shouting, “All Rise! Here comes the Judge!” He never held back when yelling, “It’s a thrilla by Godzilla,” when Hideki Matsui knocked one out.
He seemed to stretch out “THUUUUUUHHHHH YANKEES WIN!” a little longer every time he did it, and he did it for more than three decades.
Indeed, the longevity of Sterling's run with the Yankees stands out. And over the years there, he worked alongside a variety of prominent broadcasting partners. Those included Jay Johnstone (1989–1990), Joe Angel (1991), Michael Kay (1992–2001), Charley Steiner (2002–2004), and Suzyn Waldman (2005–2024). Sterling always made his own impression, though, especially with those home run calls. And while those sometimes drew “schtick” criticism for him, Sterling was fine with that, telling Real Sports’ Bryant Gumbel in 2019 “The world doesn't feed its hungry by how I make a call. And I'm not going to change.”
Indeed, Sterling stuck with what worked for him all the way through his retirement in 2024. But, strangely enough, retirement itself didn’t stick for him at first. After mulling the idea for a few years and missing more games in his final seasons, Sterling suddenly hung up his mic early in the 2024 season, saying “My tank is empty.” But he’d return for a short guest appearance that August on a pre-planned night featuring giveaway t-shirts of him and Waldman, and then would return to the booth full-time for the postseason, which saw the Yankees advance all the way to the World Series. That would see Sterling end his Yankees’ broadcasts with 5,426 regular season games, 225 postseason games, and an incredible legacy. The boy who studied famous entertainers and dreamt about being on the air sure pulled that off.
