The poetic stylings of John Sterling
ByWith new Yankees on the team, one rite of spring involves John Sterling’s home run calls. We wait to hear what the announcer dubbed Pa Pinstripe can come up with, and invariably it will make us groan. We’ve heard “Russel has muscle” and “Andruw Jones makes his bones” already this year, and Eric Chavez has yet to homer. As part of The Sports Section’s coverage of Opening Week, New York Magazine writer Joe DeLessio explored the seven types of Sterling’s home run calls. It is, well, something.
I’m pretty sure DeLessio hit on the entire oeuvre. He talks rhymes, plays on players’ names, alliteration, foreign languages (that make little sense in English), the ever-popular Granderson cultural references, references to Babe Ruth and, of course, made-up words. At least it’s not Hawk Harrelson.
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The Mason Williams Watch
He added French to Russell Martin’s home run call yesterday. x_0
He said, “Monsieur Martin est là,” which translates to “Mister Martin is here.”
Actually, “Monsieur Martin est la” means “Mister Martin is there.” “ici” means “here,” “la” means “there.”
An Upper Decky from Hideki!!!
To me, Sterling’s calls are like country music, as I lose respect for whoever likes them.
In all seriousness though, aren’t announcers as a whole getting ridiculous? It’s to the point where their obsession for notoriety can be seen multiple times per inning.
Those fools on the South side of Chicago are saying, “YES!” for everything now. They were terrible when it was just home runs. Now it’s like, “..and in the bottom of the first, there was no runs, on no hits, no errors, but was there a man left on base? YEEEEESSSS!”
MUTE!
*were no runs*
Nothing wrong with country music
Ha! I figured that’d be the buzz point of my comment.
Don’t even like Cash?
Not a fan of the cement mixer sound. Try Waylon or Merle
Absolutely, Yes.
I was probably too broad. I meant current country music. You know, where they try as hard as they can to sound “country.” The style of music isn’t enough of a tell, they have to use words and phrases that sound ignorant and ridiculous.
Did they cover the “Culturally Ignorant Insensitive” type? “An A-Bomb for Matsui..”
I was wondering what the Jones call was. Good to know I didn’t miss anything.
He said something like:
“Jones is the bones, a home run for Andruw”
Not one of his better calls.
I still liked when he screwed up and did the A-bomb call for Hideki Matsui…. so culturally inappropriate
Thanks for reminding me of that awful Berkman call, probably Sterling’s worst.
If you noticed yesterday, Sterling only did the “Grandyman can” and nixed the ever-awkward “You’re something kinda Grandish.”
Small victories. Small victories.
His best in my opinion are:
1. Bern, baby Bern
2. A thrilla by Godzilla
3. 1995 playoffs against the mariners when he pulled out “back to back and belly to belly” after a couple of doubles.
My favorites — and as an anti-Sterling guy, I use that word loosely — will always be “Bern Baby Bern, Bernie goes boom” and “An A-Bomb from A-Rod.” The rest seem awfully forced.
Coming from someone that thinks bad jokes are the funniest kind, I love these homerun calls.
He’s an embarrassment to the organization.
Does anyone actually know when sterlings contract ends? The only time I listen to the yanks on the radio is when thy play the mets and I can tune into that station. It truly is excruciating just trying to listen to this clown I really have no idea how they let him and Susan Waldman be the voice of the most popular team in baseball.
As Poopy Pants said, he’s an utter embarrassment. There’s no good reason anyone with an IQ over 0 should ever enjoy listening to that ass or Suzyn Waaaaaaaaaaldman. I’d rather have Hawk and Fran Drescher call the game.
I was travelling back from the UK to Dublin yesterday and had to listen to the radio cast…First time I’ve ever listened to Sterling.
I actually found it alright. I’m used to unbelievably bad commentators in sports over here though so for me he was a step above. It’s the same with Kay. Miles better than commentators over here :O
How do you pick up the radio cast while in Dublin? Satellite radio?
I have the MLB tv package and app so I use that mostly. First time using the radio stream on though.
He is alright in a carnival kind of way.
Suzy has to go, annoying voice and real supid statements…”I was talking with Arod and asked him why popcorn?” or “Andruw, how did you get to that ball?”
McBuckcarver employment is one of the greatest mysteries to me. Morgan/Miller were the Mendoza-line for me, Orel is on his way to the HoF & McBuckcarver bat less than the weight of a Pedroria bottlehead.
Sterling is a pleasure to listen to. He makes my drive home very enjoyable. A textbook type would bore me. The guys on 660 are an absolute bore
As much as I try to hate his calls, they do make me laugh, or groan, or both, yet that’s why they work. And, yes, even the most jaded among us wonder what Sterling’s call is for the newest Yankee.
There’s a reason why he has been a success in the sports radio business for a long time. I’m old enough — yikes — to remember as a kid when the Yankees were on WMCA radio in the late 70s/early 80s and Sterling used to host a sports radio show that was quite popular, while also being the main announcer for the NY Islanders. It was during the Islanders dynasty run (hard to believe they once were one of the greatest hockey teams ever) that I first became aware of Sterling, as he would scream, “Islander goal, Islander goal, Islander goal” after every score. The media used to report on his over-the-top calls, and they’ve been doing so since (outside of the years he was banished to Atlanta). We can pick on them, but he knows what works. They not only get played during the games, by WFAN replays them, ESPN replays them, MLB Network replays them, radio stations in other cities play them. Pick on him all you want, but he’s better at this than you are.
Now the real issue I have with Sterling is how he calls the rest of the game in between those HR calls. He’s become a bit lazy over the years. He at times gets too detached from the game action and, worse (at least to me), sometimes it is difficult to tell what’s going on on the field. He doesn’t have the advantage of TV and pictures to fill in the action, so a good radio announcer must be able to convey the action through not just what he says, but the rising and lowering of tension in his voice. It shouldn’t be a surprise to the listener if the ball is going to fly over the CFers head or is caught easily. I can no longer tell what the hell is happening once the ball leaves the bat and lands somehwere else. He didn’t use to call games like that in his younger days.
And the coupling with Waldman (perhaps a bad choice of words) makes things worse. I can live with Sterling. I actually like him on some level. I just wish they’d give him a professional announcer side-kick to actually help him call the parts of the games when he no longer seems interested in.
i agree. Sterling may get annoying or goofy sometimes.
But Waldmynyynyn has absolutely no business in the booth.
She is dumber than shit. Has nothing to do with her being a woman, either. Hell, why not give Kim Jones a shot in there?
Suzyn has that job, plain and simple, because she’s a cancer survivor. Sorry, but it’s true. She has a sympathy vote within the Yankee front office and WCBS powers-that-be.
The Clemens thing was one of the most embarrassing moments for a Yankee broadcast ever.
I’ve had enough of this radio broadcast duo , its so bad id rather just skip listening to it and check the scores on the computer when i get home. Its to bad baseball is a great game to listen to on the radio, its just unfortunate that the yankees have such an unlistenable radio broadcast.
Jimmy, I agree with you 100%.
The term “unlistenable” pretty much sums it up.