The baseball world—and the Yankees Universe—lost a legend Monday morning, as longtime radio play-by-play announcer John Sterling died at the age of 87. For 36 seasons, Sterling was a steady, familiar voice on the radio waves, the lifeblood of Yankee fandom personified in a commentator, whether it was his catchphrases—“That’s baseball, Suzyn”—his memorable and personalized home run calls for Yankees players, or the indefatigable energy with which he called a game.
If you spent any time in New York in the last three decades, you heard Sterling’s voice, which became as synonymous with the Yankees as did the pinstripes and interlocking ‘NY’ on the club’s caps, blaring out his trademark victory screech to trumpet a Yankees win or venting on-air about one of the team’s mishaps—“They run the bases like drunks.”
