On the same day that perhaps the number one Yankees fan, Rudy Giuliani, found himself in the hospital in critical condition, word soon came out that perhaps the number one Yankees radio voice, John Sterling, passed away at the age of 87. Sterling was already a radio legend in New York, as a talk show host on WMCA, but he also was the original voice of the New York Islanders, as well as the voice of the then New York Nets and the Atlanta Braves. However, it was when Sterling came back to New York in 1989 that he found his calling. That was the first of 37 seasons in which Sterling was the voice of the Bronx Bombers. Sterling was the Iron Man of the booth, calling 5,030 consecutive Yankees games at one point, and 5,631 total from 1989-2024. Lifelong Yankee fan Curtis Sliwa, who did his late-night talk show following Yankee baseball broadcast for several years, took time to share his personal stories of the man who was part of the soundtrack to many summer nights in the Big Apple.
For several seasons, Curtis would be preparing to do his own nightly show on the heels of the Yankees broadcasts. During the post-game show, Sterling would replay the scoring plays in the game, both for and against the Yanks- a point which, Curtis reminisced, irritated him to no end: “For years, he did the post-game show when [the guys up the dial] covered the Yankees. You know who did the post-post-game show? Me, and I had to wait for John Sterling to finish doing the highlights, or the lowlights, and I would say to John during the breaks, ‘John if you’re a Yankees fan, you don’t want to hear the lowlights. You don’t want insult added to injury.’ He goes, ‘Kid, wait your turn.’ Wait your turn- augh!”
Curtis then took up Larry cause of the moment, to bring about one of the few career accolades that John Sterling never received- induction into the broadcaster’s wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame: “I concur. I mean a voice, so synonymous, like Harry Caray, so synonymous with the Cardinals and the Cubs, and he was half in the bag. Remember, he was half in the bag by the time they took the seventh inning break, and they gave the microphone to Harry Caray, singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame. He was half in the bag- come on! We’ve got to do this for Sterling!”
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