Mel Allen, Red Barber, Phil Rizzuto ... and now John Sterling. The names of the great Yankee broadcasters roll off the tongue and elicits memories almost as vividly as the players on the field. They were the voices of their respective generations and now John Sterling joins the ranks of some of the greatest pipes in the business to hang it up.
John Sterling, who has been a fixture as the voice of the New York Yankees for 36 years, has retired. The 85-year-old Sterling retired quickly, but has said he is "very happy" and his decision was not based on a health scare. In recent years he had begun to miss road games after decades of not missing a single call. Sterling called 5,060 consecutive games from September 1989 to July 2019, which included every at bat and every pitch of Hall of Famers Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, to name just a few.
Sterling was a native New Yorker who grew up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and was a Yankee fan growing up. He joined the Yankees in 1989 after spending time calling Hawks basketball and Braves games. Before he headed to Atlanta he called the Islanders and Nets games in New York.
All told, Sterling called a remarkable 5,420 regular-season Yankees games and 211 more in the postseason. His longevity is iconic but John will likely be remembered for his unique enthusiasm with his distinctive home run calls.