John Sterling, whose mellifluous voice became the soundtrack of spring, summer and quite a few Octobers to generations of Yankees fans and who during one stretch broadcast 5,060 consecutive games, has died at 87 years old.
Sterling, the Yankees’ radio play-by-play voice for 36 seasons, was behind the microphone for five world championship teams and seven American League pennant winners during a broadcasting career that began upstate at a tiny radio station in Wellsville during the late 1950s and spanned an incredible eight decades.
An eclectic and eccentric character well-versed in Frank Sinatra, classic films, Broadway show tunes, and his favorite soap operas, Sterling was just as apt to break into a song from the second act of “Oklahoma” as he was to describe the intricacies of a well-executed 3-6-3 double play.
His over-the-top imprimatur immediately following the final out of Yankee victories — “Ballgame over. Yankees win. Thuuuuugh Yankees win” — was a fan favorite as were his hokey salutations celebrating Yankee home runs. It was a shtick —and Sterling gladly admitted he was doing shtick —that began with the simple and benign “Burn Baby Burn” (Bernie Williams). Over the years that led to “A Thrilla from Godzilla” (Hideki Matsui), “It’s an A-bomb from A-Rod” (Alex Rodriguez) and “Robby Cano, don’t you know,” all the way to “Giancarlo, non si può stoparlo” in tribute to slugger Giancarlo Stanton’s Italian heritage.
While Yankees fans loved that Sterling saw everything through pinstriped glasses, he did have his critics who decried his many affectations and the accuracy of some of his calls. His signature “It is high, it is far, it is gone,” stuck in a lot of listeners’ craws since Sterling would use it no matter the trajectory or distance of a home run
And Sterling, who wore a jacket and tie to every game — and white pants after Memorial Day but never beyond Labor Day — couldn’t have cared less.
“If someone tells you you stink, what do they know. It’s just their opinion,” he once said. “There will always be people who don’t like what you do. It’s like any art form. That’s just the way it is.”
Said his longtime broadcast partner Suzyn Waldman: “He is more comfortable in his own skin than anyone I have ever met in my whole life.”
After missing a pair of games during the 1989 season — his first with the Yankees — following the death of his sister Jane, Sterling did not miss a game for 30 years until a health issue forced him to skip a handful of contests in July 2019.
Sterling also missed a handful of games during the truncated 2020 season with a blood infection that required a brief hospital stay.
