NEW YORK – Get off the phone, you jerk!
Believe it or not, that was my introduction, or rather my earliest awareness of John Sterling. He was doing a sports talk show on radio in the early 1970s, and call-in shows had to be really vitriolic in those days. All through the Yankees games, they would run promos for the show, ending with a clip of Sterling shouting, “Get off the phone you jerk!”
Like much of what John Sterling said during his 64 years on the radio — “Can you believe it? Sixty-Four … Years” — what he said and, more to the point, the way he said it, just stuck. When he came back to New York to become the Yankees play-by-play announcer in 1989, his dream job, I thought, “Wait, that guy? The get-off-the-phone-you-jerk guy?”
Later still, when I began covering the Yankees regularly for The Courant, John and I became friends. No quid pro quo to it, we just have a lot of the same interests, enjoy good conversation, take our crafts, but not ourselves, too seriously. In 2007, as my time on the beat was ending, word got around and when Sterling heard he ran out of his booth only a few minutes before first pitch to find me. With his unique inflexion, he shouted, “I just heard something that stinks.” You don’t forget such things. I’m eternally honored and grateful, too, that he wrote the forward to my book, “Franchise on the Rise,” in 2018.
Now, when John got off topic for anecdote or soliloquy, the count would invariably be two balls and one strike when he got back on point.
“So anyway, the two-one … ” That’s an insider’s catch phrase.
I got to Yankee Stadium to see John Sterling, 85, off into retirement Saturday after 36 years of catch phrases, home run calls and rather commonplace observations like “You can’t predict baseball,” or even “I thank you” were on everyone’s lips, because of the way he said them.
I describe our friendship only so you understand you are not going to get the old curmudgeonly carping about miscalculating on long fly balls, forcing his schtick into the way of the game, yada, yada, yada. That’s to be tapped on the keyboard of folks who miss the point. Yes, I know. It was a line drive, it was neither high, nor far nor in some cases even gone. So what?
There are plenty of announcers who are excellent, polished, learned to do it all the right way. The ones who make it to the major leagues and stay until they’re in their 70s, 80s — like Ernie Harwell, Vin Scully, Joe Castiglione, Bob Uecker, Sterling and his Yankee compadre Suzyn Waldman — last because they don’t sound like anyone, or everyone else. They don’t have to be letter-perfect, they have something you can’t teach and when they leave, the summer no longer has the same sound, rhythm.
So anyway, the two-one … John was about 6 years old when “The Eddie Bracken Show” was on the radio in the mid-1940s. He decided then he didn’t want to be Eddie Bracken, he wanted to be the one who said, “Live from Hollywood, it’s the Eddie Bracken Show.” He “walked through” a couple of colleges, he said, but decided he was ready at 21 and got a job at a small station in Wellsville, N.Y. On Feb. 1, 1960, he found himself alone and on the air spinning records. “And it was easy,” he said. “I knew I could do it.” To this day, out of force of habit, he cups his ear with one hand like an old-time announcer.
Along the way, he discovered the secret: Be yourself, love yourself. “I do what I do,” he once told me, “the way that I do it.” His audience loved it, loved the way he loved doing it, and if you didn’t? Well, get off the phone, you jerk.
It's a GRAND SLAM! Non dimenticar! That ball sure traveled far! Giancarlo! pic.twitter.com/MijTFRDveW
— John Sterling Calls (@JSterlingCalls) April 7, 2024
When the Yankees started winning in the mid-1990s, John Sterling, now in his 60s, became a rock star. It started with “Bern, baby Bern” when Bernie Williams homered, the “Bam-Tino” for Tino Martinez, and soon he had to have one for every hitter.
In 2001, he came to the ballpark after seeing the hottest show on Broadway, “The Producers” and he raved about Mel Brooks’ clever lyrics, particularly when the Hitler character sang “I’m the German Ethel Merman, dontcha know.” Four years later the line was importuned for Robinson Cano. You can blame me for “Gio Urshela, the Most Happy Fella” and “I’m just wild about Harry” for Harrison Bader. I know the man’s wheelhouse.
Here’s the thing: The minute there was even a rumor of the Yankees acquiring a hitter, there was rampant speculation about what his home run call might be. This is the very essence of success in that industry, to own a signature that no one else can copy. And for decades, the Yankees didn’t win until John Sterling, in his oft-imitated way, said they won.
“The one-of-a-kind nature, the theatrical nature, with which he captured the game,” is what Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he would miss most..
So anyway, the two-one. … John, who did not miss a game between 1989 and 2019, told his friends in January he planned to do the first road trip to Houston and Arizona, then just do East Coast games, maybe 115 total, but it was clear he was not looking forward to the season and he was frequently mentioning his age, which he never did before. Flying to Tampa for a spring training game and that first road trip took a toll. He sounded as good as ever when he did the first couple of home games, singing in Italian after Giancarlo Stanton’s grand slam, but then began calling friends to tell us something that stinks.
“The games are easy,” Sterling said at his entertaining presser, filled with Sterling-esque asides, “working with Suzyn is a lark. I just don’t have the strength and stamina any more. When you’ve been on the air 64 years and you’re about to turn 86, it’s time.”
It is, one supposes, albeit sadly. Whiling away summer evenings on the porch won’t be the same without the music from that set of pipes wafting through the screen door, but John Sterling walked away with his health and can enjoy his life on his own terms. Hopefully, he gets that plaque he deserves at Yankee Stadium, and his long overdue day in Cooperstown. He did what he did, the way that he did it and as he certainly learned this week, with some wonder on his part, he entertained us to the last catch phrase. We thank you, John. … The two-one.
