Former Yankees radio broadcaster John Sterling has died at the age of 87, WFAN and the Yankees announced Monday.
Sterling became a Yankees broadcaster in 1989 and remained with the ballclub until his retirement in 2024. He was known as the “voice of the Yankees” for more than an entire generation and called games for five World Series championship teams. In all, he worked 5,631 games.
“I am a very blessed human being,” Sterling said in a statement announcing his retirement in 2024. “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.”
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Sterling is perhaps best known for his personalized home run call for each different Yankees player. “An A-bomb for A-Rod” was the Alex Rodriguez call, for example. And, of course, whenever the Yankees would win, he gave an extended “the” — “thuh-uh-uh-uh” — in the phrase “the Yankees win.”
Sterling grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan as a Yankees fan and is said to have loved listening to games on the radio, as if in preparation for the type of life he’d lead. He took his first radio job in 1961 in Wellsville, New York, and later called Colts (NFL) and Bullets (NBA) games in Baltimore before getting back to New York City in 1971.
It was in 1989, though, when Sterling started a streak that wouldn’t be broken until 2019. He didn’t take a Yankees game off for decades, working 5,060 regular-season games and 211 playoff games without missing one.
Along the way, his legend grew.
“He’s synonymous with those five championships (1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2009),” longtime broadcast partner Michael Kay said (via The Athletic). “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.”
Howie Rose, the longtime radio voice for the crosstown Mets, called Sterling “truly one of a kind.”
“A unique character who was blessed with pipes from above,” Rose wrote on social media. “… RIP, old friend.”
