TORONTO — Though John Sterling’s retirement might have been abrupt, there won’t be a rush to permanently replace the 85-year-old legend in the New York Yankees’ radio broadcast booth, executives briefed on the Yankees’ and its flagship station’s (WFAN) plans told The Athletic.
Justin Shackil and Emmanuel Berbari will continue teaming with analyst Suzyn Waldman on WFAN for the bulk of the remaining schedule. A decision on who will take over full time for Sterling is likely to come after the season, the executives said. Though the station will make the hire because, like Sterling, he or she will be a WFAN employee, the Yankees will have a major say in who lands the high-profile gig.
Monday, hours after The Athletic first reported Sterling was planning a news conference to talk about his future, with the strong possibility he was going to retire, the Yankees, WFAN and Sterling released statements confirming that his 36-year run as the voice of the team had officially come to an end.
The New York Yankees today announced that legendary Yankees play-by-play radio voice John Sterling, who has called 5,420 regular season Yankees games and 211 postseason Yankees games, is retiring effective immediately. He will be recognized in a pregame ceremony on Saturday,… pic.twitter.com/Bnhrkx6WEM
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) April 15, 2024
The Yankees and WFAN weren’t caught off-guard. Speculation about Sterling’s future began before 2019, when his streak of calling 5,058 consecutive Yankees games (including the playoffs), ended at 81 years old. At the time, Sterling said he was ending the streak because he was feeling “a little under the weather.”
Neither Shackil, 36, nor Berbari, 24, are yet favorites for the job; however, they have the advantage of auditioning in front of a Yankees audience (and executives) all summer. Both have worked extensively with Waldman, who has been Sterling’s broadcast teammate since 2004. Shackil and Berbari are expected to call the majority of the games, but the Yankees have used Rickie Ricardo, who helms the station’s Spanish language Yankees play-by-play, and veterans Ryan Ruocco and Brendan Burke in the past.
Ruocco, 37, would be a top candidate, but he’s now ESPN’s No. 2 NBA play-by-play announcer and the voice of the WNBA and women’s college basketball alongside his work with the YES Network covering the Yankees and Brooklyn Nets.
Burke, 39, is another possibility, but he also has plenty of commitments, including his work as the full-time voice of the New York Islanders and on TNT, where he calls NHL games, including the playoffs.
Before Sterling’s retirement, the plan was for him to work all the Yankees’ home games and select trips, with Shackil and Berbari filling in the gaps. At the Yankees’ home opener April 5, he told The Athletic he was tired of traveling, that calling games was still “easy” but that “everything else is tough for me at this age — and being alone and having to do everything myself.” He called his final game two days later on April 7, an 8-3 win over the Toronto Blue Jays in the Bronx. His first Yankees broadcast came in 1989.
Saturday, the Yankees will honor Sterling with a pregame ceremony at Yankee Stadium. He was perhaps best known for his signature home run calls and punctuating victories with “Thuuuugh Yankees win!” He also worked as a play-by-play announcer for the Islanders, Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Braves throughout his 64-year career, which included time as a New York sports talk radio host. After he announced his retirement, fellow broadcasters paid tribute to him by emulating his calls on the air.
“I am a very blessed human being,” Sterling said in a statement Monday. “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.”
(Photo of John Sterling in 2021: Alexander Lewis / MyCentralJersey via USA Today)