{"id":70664,"date":"2024-04-15T17:25:24","date_gmt":"2024-04-15T21:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=70664"},"modified":"2024-04-15T18:14:13","modified_gmt":"2024-04-15T22:14:13","slug":"john-sterling-announces-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/15\/john-sterling-announces-retirement\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees Radio Legend To Retire After Over 35 Years with the Team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Longtime New York Yankees radio broadcaster John Sterling announced his retirement, effective immediately, in a statement on Monday. He initially teased an upcoming Friday press conference to discuss his future, but ultimately broke the news on Monday instead. The team will honor Sterling at Yankee Stadium on Saturday before their game against the Tampa Bay Rays.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">John Sterling is retiring, effective immediately.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am a very blessed human being. 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. It\u2019s all to my\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bryan Hoch \u26be\ufe0f (@BryanHoch) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BryanHoch\/status\/1779974406241915076?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 15, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>John Sterling Announces Retirement<\/h2>\n<p>Sterling, now 85 years old, has been a fixture in the Yankees radio booth since 1989. He went three decades as the play-by-play man without missing a single game, from his start with the team until July 2019, when he took a few games off. Since then, Sterling has scaled back his broadcast schedule, mostly taking some road trips off. Ryan Ruocco and Justin Shackil have filled in for him on these occasions. Sterling has had several partners in the booth over the years, most notably Michael Kay (now the team&#8217;s longtime play-by-play man on the YES Network) and Suzyn Waldman, who has called games with him since 2005.<\/p>\n<p>After having been at it for so long, Sterling has his share of both fans and detractors. His over-the-top and distinct home run calls for each Yankee player have won him both praise and derision, and his tendency to occasionally get calls wrong has attracted criticism as well. However, no matter their opinions of his style, Sterling was the voice of the Yankees for multiple generations of fans. Thanks to his longevity and distinctive broadcast style, he will be an indelible figure in the orbit of the Yankees for years to come.<\/p>\n<p>Sterling&#8217;s more memorable home run calls through the generations include those for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=willibe02,willibe01&amp;search=Bernie+Williams&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-15_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bernie Williams<\/a> (&#8220;Bern baby Bern!&#8221;), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jeterde01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-15_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Derek Jeter<\/a> (El Capitan!) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/matsuhi01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-15_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hideki Matsui<\/a> (A thrilla by Godzilla!), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/u\/urshegi01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-15_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gio Urshela<\/a> (&#8230;the most happy fella!), and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/j\/judgeaa01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-15_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aaron Judge<\/a> (A Judgian blast! All rise, here comes the Judge!). It&#8217;s truly a shame that Yankees fans will never hear &#8220;Bye Bye Berti!&#8221; for a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bertijo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-15_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jon Berti<\/a> home run. That call appeared inevitable given Sterling&#8217;s knack for antiquated Broadway references.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Bob Karp\/Staff Photographer\/ USA TODAY NETWORK \/ USA TODAY NETWORK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Longtime New York Yankees radio broadcaster John Sterling announced his retirement, effective immediately, in a statement on Monday. He initially teased an upcoming Friday press conference to discuss his future, but ultimately broke the news on Monday instead. The team will honor Sterling at Yankee Stadium on Saturday before their game against the Tampa Bay [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3931,"featured_media":70678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1071,35],"tags":[501,994,1147,2792,4500,4956],"class_list":["post-70664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-yankees","category-mlb","category-news","tag-aaron-judge","tag-bernie-williams","tag-derek-jeter","tag-gio-urshela","tag-hideki-matsui","tag-jon-berti"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3931"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}