Twenty-two years of this garbage, 22 years of tuning to Yankees games forced to rely on a guy who doesn’t know what’s going on and hardly cares. He’d rather holler his asinine nicknames and so-often-wrong “signature” calls so the fools at “SportsCenter” can reward him with a sound bite and a credit.

I feel like James Carville in Old School....I can't argue. That argument is perfect.

I always knew the day would come when I agreed wholeheartedly with the NY Post.

+1 for hatred of Sterling.

John Sterling: "A homer! For Marcus Thames! (singing) 'Happy Thames are here again...'"

It's "Happy DAYS are here again" you ####### toolbag. Not 'Happy times'

When Michael Kay and John Sterling used to be the Yankees radio voices, you could tell that they did not like each other, and the tension was in the finest tradition of Yankee broadcasts. I grew up listening to Phil Rizzuto openly loathe Bill White (a "National League huckleberry"), who could not stand Rizzuto. Neither of them had any use for Frank Messer, who combined the sobriety of Harry Caray with the knowledge of, well, John Sterling. Kay conveyed that he thought Sterling was a schtick-ridden gasbag homer, while Sterling made it clear that he thought Kay was a humorless, effette New York Times refugee who had not gut-level feel for the game. Something about the combination kept both Kay and Sterling on their toes.

So the Yankees split up Sterling and Kay, to the detriment of the radio broadcast. Sterling literally seems to have been to be reduced to his pre-canned home run calls. He is frequently wrong, but never in doubt. Between Sterling and Suzyn Waldman, a radio listener is hard-pressed to have even a clue about what is happening in the game.

New York is the broadcast, media, radio center of the universe and yet they are stuck with this guy calling the Yankees.

I'd rather listen to an AI version of Vin Scully call the game for the Yankees. I'm sure Apple or even Microsoft can make it happen.

I'd rather listen to an AI version of Vin Scully call the game for the Yankees. I'm sure Apple or even Microsoft can make it happen.

Would you take a hologram of Tupac?

According to Bill White in his recent autobiography, he loved Phil Rizzuto--he thought Rizzuto was one of the greatest people he had ever known, and they were the best of friends. White ripped a lot of people in his book, including Steinbrenner and many others, but Rizzuto was nothing but love.

White, Rizzuto, and Messer all got along well. There was no animosity--at least not publicly expressed--from one toward the other. And as Mark points out, Rizzuto and White were particularly close.

Sterling and Kay calling the 9th inning of David Wells's perfect game is first rate radio. Sterling had a talent for building drama.

When I watched Yankee games on FOX/ESPN with McCarver or Joe Morgan, I turned the sound off. I do the same thing when I listen to yankee games on the radio. :)

Actually, if I am in the car listening to a game, I make mental notes to watch it the next day on mlb.com to see how bad certain calls were. it is pretty infuriating to hear his "it is high it is far it is caught" calls, or simply not knowing if you can believe it was a close play or not. And "a FABULOUS play by Jeter" might be a routing grounder in the hole. sigh.

Still better than Rizutto at the end though. He was basically a blind man calling play by play.

Rizzuto & White may have teased each other but I don't believe they disliked each other. #5 is seriously off-base on that. Can't say with regard to Sterling & Kay as I seldom listened - except for that brief period when Internet radio was free.

Also, Sterling may be terrible but Phil Mushnick is a no talent hack of the first order.

As bad as Walding is I was forced to listen to them when they played the Angels last week. Who is the schmuck with the accent? Former player, I'm sure. He is awful.

I never got the impression that White and Rizzuto didn't get along. Maybe Rizzuto didn't care for Seaver the short time they paired up. Also seemed to me that Sterling and Kay were OK with each other. Sterling and Charlie Steiner on the other hand...

Also, Sterling may be terrible but Phil Mushnick is a no talent hack of the first order.

Almost everything that annoys Mushnick annoys me, and for essentially the same reasons. Black uniforms, loafing and posing, the hypocrisies of college football and basketball, all things ESPN, Francesca's gasbaggery and laughable deficiencies, and on and on. He's right about practically all of them.

Sterling was despised when he called Islanders and Nets games. Whatever possessed Steinbrenner to think he was worthy of calling the Yankees? A team of that caliber and tradition deserves a top-of-the-line announcer, a Scully, Harwell, Kalas or Miller type, someone in the tradition of Allen and Barber.

Oh, and I agree that Rizzuto and White had wonderful rapport, sort of what Kalas and Ashburn would have been like if they worked in New York and had both been ballplayers. Messer may not have been a great announcer, but he was at least listenable.

Just read what Bill White had to say about Messer and Rizzuto in his auto-biography, and I was wrong. I gave too much credence to the teasing between White and Rizzuto. But, the animosity between Sterling and Kay when they shared the radio booth was palpable. And each of them, given their own fiefdom, have allowed their worst tendancies to take over completely. Kay has become even more of a pedantic know-it-all and Sterling treats a broadcast as an opportunity to trot out hoary cliches and catch-phrases that bear no relation to the action.

Sterling was despised when he called Islanders and Nets games.

Skip Carey hated Sterling's guts and Sterling was terrible on Atlanta Hawks games.

For some reason I actually kind of defended him and Waldman a couple times in recent years, was driving with family on Opening Day, turned them on and wondered what the hell could have possibly gotten into me.(*) They're abysmally bad.

(*) Either a surfeit of charity and brotherhood -- unlikely -- or in some way, the discussion included both Sterling and Kay and when Kay's involved, the curve is worm-high.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/baseballs_best/mlb_bb_gamepage.jsp?story_page=bb_98reg_051798_minnyy

Here's the link. 9th begins at right around 2 hours.

Almost everything that annoys Mushnick annoys me, and for essentially the same reasons. Black uniforms, loafing and posing, the hypocrisies of college football and basketball, all things ESPN, Francesca's gasbaggery and laughable deficiencies, and on and on. He's right about practically all of them.

Those opinions absolutely need to be said... maybe once every six months or so. Mushnick devotes 90% of every column to those things, and it gets tiresome very quickly.

As bad as Walding is I was forced to listen to them when they played the Angels last week. Who is the schmuck with the accent? Former player, I'm sure. He is awful.

He's Jose Mota, Manny Mota's son. Cup of coffee in the bigs. He does the Spanish language calls for Angels radio, and part-time with the English. He's not great, and he joins with Terry Smith to form a very meh combo.

They're ten gazillion times better than Sterling. He's down to Hawk Harrelson levels.

They're ten gazillion times better than Sterling. He's down to Hawk Harrelson levels.

Oh come on, not even close.

Turned on the radio a couple of weeks ago to check out the Yanks-O's. It was the first time I had decided to listen to a Yanks game this season, and the first thing I hear was this call:

"Adam Jones connects! It's a deep fly ball...and Adam Jones catches it at the warning track."

I turned it off.

Here's the Cone perfecto: another Sterling highlight. Ninth begins at 1:45 or so. Sterling and Kay were a very good team when they weren't hamming it up.

http://mlb.mlb.com/media/player/mp_tpl_3_1.jsp?w_id=525176&w=/library/mlb_!/bb/bbaudio/99reg/99reg_071899_monnyy_radio.wmv&vid=7808&pid=bb_audio&cid=mlb&v=2

Does Sterling insist on Waldman introducing him as "The Voice of the New York Yankees" right before the first pitch? Is it like DiMaggio insisting on always being publicly introduced as "The Greatest Living Ballplayer"?

seriously, listen to the Cone no hitter 9th inning and give Sterling credit for what he can do well.

New York is the broadcast, media, radio center of the universe and yet they are stuck with this guy calling the Yankees.

The Dodgers haven't hired a good lead announcer since they moved to LA.

Primey nomination for #28.

Sterling and Kay are both self-important morons.

They are perfect embodiments of the Yankee organization and I hope they keep their jobs for a long time.

In the Friday game, Sterling called two straight homers wrong. He is insufferable, and the less said about Susan Waldman the better.
Can't agree about Mushnick. Yes he brings the same topics up, but the problems keep on going so why not use a big city paper's forum to kvetch about them, hoping that someone else picks up on them? Certainly you can avoid reading him, but you can't avoid hearing the ESPN crap unless you mute it, and if you are ever stuck listening to Francessa you know he needs to be deflated. Someone has to be Cassandra.
And on those Yankee 70's broadcasts, we hated Messer with a passion. Particularly annoying was the remarkable coincidences that he would have always had eaten breakfast with the star of the game. My father said he must have been a short order cook.

They're ten gazillion times better than Sterling. He's down to Hawk Harrelson levels.

Oh come on, not even close.

True, it might be much more. It's not that Smith and Mota are good (they're not), but at least they call the ####### game, and every line isn't a setup for some trademarked catch phrase. I swear to ####### heaven, if I have to hear that utterly moronic Grandy-man homer call one more time, someone ####### dies. How you guys can even stand that #### is beyond me.

seriously, listen to the Cone no hitter 9th inning and give Sterling credit for what he can do well.

What he could do well. I think some of this is that he's getting old and complacent.

One of the most infuriating Sterling-isms I can remember was a while back he and Susyn are talking about Vlad Guerrero (I think) and how aggressive he is at the plate. Sterling gets telling a story and went on to say "well Susyn... you know that old saying... you have to swing to get off the island". He and Susyn both starting laughing at this, and how clever it was. (The saying is "you can't walk off the island")

I'm getting frustrated just reliving it now. I'm getting frustrated just rereading all of you all's accounts of John Sterling. I work a full time job and enjoy baseball as a hobby. This is his job that he's paid to do. And... I still know more than him. It's terrible.

Can't agree about Mushnick. Yes he brings the same topics up, but the problems keep on going so why not use a big city paper's forum to kvetch about them, hoping that someone else picks up on them? Certainly you can avoid reading him, but you can't avoid hearing the ESPN crap unless you mute it, and if you are ever stuck listening to Francessa you know he needs to be deflated. Someone has to be Cassandra.

Well, Bob Costas spent most of the 1990s complaining about the wild card format at every opportunity -- during postseason play-by-play, on his radio show, as a talk-show guest. Finally he wrote Fair Ball, put his feelings about the wild card between two covers, spelled out what he didn't like about it, and pretty much got it out of his system (and it's also a very good book, incidentally). I actually like Mushnick as a writer, but he should really just write a one-volume jeremiad about the noxious NCAA/WWE/Francesa/ESPN culture and move on to a new set of targets. And it wouldn't kill him to write more frequently about the TV/radio guys and athletes he happens to enjoy. People do watch sports for enjoyment, too.

I can deal with a lot of things. The inane, repetitive home run calls are tiresome, but I can cope. What drives me absolutely crazy with Sterling and Waldman is that you can't tell, at all, what's going on in the game.

And every time someone introduces "The Voice of the New York Yankees" I look for Mel Allen, who must be rolling in his grave.

Kay is annoying but because he works on TV, people can usually pass him stuff and he will correct his mistakes. For example, he just mistakenly said A-rod won two MVPs in Texas, but corrected himself and said that the 05 one was in NY.

Sterling is usually just wrong and because we can't see it it's actually confusing.

"Adam Jones connects! It's a deep fly ball...and Adam Jones catches it at the warning track."

He's no Willie Mays.

They're ten gazillion times better than Sterling. He's down to Hawk Harrelson levels.

Oh come on, not even close.

You're right - Sterling's about a thousand times worse.

Also, Sterling may be terrible but Phil Mushnick is a no talent hack of the first order.

Those opinions absolutely need to be said... maybe once every six months or so. Mushnick devotes 90% of every column to those things, and it gets tiresome very quickly.

I haven't read Mushnick in well over a decade, since I left the NYC metro area; but I do recall reading his column regularly back in the 1990s. Mushnick would often make points that I would tend to agree with. But what really made Mushnick's columns interesting to me was that he would be totally oblivious to the obvious hypocrisy in his own writing.

For example Mushnick wrote many critical words in the 1990s chastising the (then) WWF for selling what Mushnick described as blatant sexism. These critical words would appear in Mushnick's column in the New York Post surrounded by ads for topless bars and XXX movie theaters.

So when Mushnick complains about someone who has spent more than two decades turning out the same tired shtick over and over again, often overlooking what's actually going on just so he can trot out his same old tired catch phrases, all I can say is "Physician, heal thyself."

DB

"Physician, heal thyself."

Will Phil "Anti-Coarsening of Today's Sports Culture" Mushnick publicly take his own paper to task for the 100 YEARS OF ASS KICKING front page from this weekend?

Will Phil "Anti-Coarsening of Today's Sports Culture" Mushnick publicly take his own paper to task for the 100 YEARS OF ASS KICKING front page from this weekend?


You have to admit that's pretty funny.

"Sterling made it clear that he thought Kay was a humorless, effette New York Times refugee who had not gut-level feel for the game."

That would be another Sterling error, then - Kay worked for the tabloid, non-effete Daily News and Post. Don't ever recall him working at the Times.

fyi, Mushnick fun here re being cub reporter for early NJ Nets duty
http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/more_sports/nuts_went_this_way_piscataway_MwnFj6Ug8Caxo3VFBFhX8I

ONCE I brought a date to a game, got her a seat just behind me.

In that game the Nets made a big comeback late against, I think, Houston. Down two with seconds left, the Nets had no timeouts. The Rockets, shooting to the right missed; the Nets rebounded. At that point, the Nets bench, just to my left, began to point and holler that there’s water on the floor.

The refs looked down. Sure enough, a splash of water had mysteriously appeared near midcourt. Officials’ timeout. The refs called for a mop. Meanwhile, Kevin Loughery called the Nets over to discuss their last-chance shot.

At that critical point, my date decided, for the first time, that she wanted to discuss the game.

She stepped to my seat and, pointing, said, “He threw it.” I told her, “Not now, I’m ... He threw what?”

“He” she said, pointing to Loughery, “just threw a cup of water on the court.”

“He did?”

“Yes, I just saw him do it!”

Good things happen, I suppose, when you bring a date to a game who, during the biggest play of the game, would be watching elsewhere.

Anyway, the Nets lost, but, thanks to my date, I had the story to myself, plenty more to come. I married her.

After the game, when I asked Loughery about the water toss, he refused to discuss it. But he did ask what made me ask. “You don’t wanna know,” I told him.

Sorry, my reference to "not even close" was to Hawk Harrelson, who is easily the worst broadcaster alive in any sport or medium.

Sorry, my reference to "not even close" was to Hawk Harrelson, who is easily the worst broadcaster alive in any sport or medium.

I'll say it before and I'll say it again, he is a play by play man that REFUSES to call the plays when things are going bad for his team.* When his job is hard, he flat out refuses to do it! How has he not been fired?




*Sadly (for him) this may be when he is at his best.

I am listening to the game last night - Arod (or someone) comes up and says that he is 14 for 58 on the season (or something like that). Am I supposed to figure out his batting average in my head? Ok that one isn't that tough. But still. and after the first at bat - Sterling NEVER gives even slash stats. So if you pick up the game in the third inning, you hear the player is 0-1. It is especially irritating for opposing players whose stats you don't know as well.

fire him

I am listening to the game last night - Arod (or someone) comes up and says that he is 14 for 58 on the season (or something like that). Am I supposed to figure out his batting average in my head?

It's intentional. A lot of broadcasters do that in April, on the premise that early batting averages aren't very meaningful.

fire him

I hope you meant ignite him.

The flames are high and he is gone!!!!

I'll say it before and I'll say it again, he is a play by play man that REFUSES to call the plays when things are going bad for his team.

Some of the most spectacular segments on MLB Tonight are when they lampoon Harrelson's unique style of PBP when the White Sox are losing, particularly if they lose the lead late in the game on a dumb play.

I will trade Rex Hudler for John Sterling sight unseen and broadcast unheard.

I'll say it before and I'll say it again, he is a play by play man that REFUSES to call the plays when things are going bad for his team.* When his job is hard, he flat out refuses to do it! How has he not been fired?

It's not that Harrelson is still employed. Harrelson, by being employed, is still contained. At this point, because he is seen as a buffoon, his buffoonery does no harm in his current role. But if he's not in this job he'll be in another, and the world cannot withstand the damage he can inflict.

I will trade Rex Hudler for John Sterling sight unseen and broadcast unheard.

Hudler is a terrible game caller, and would be a tremendous upgrade over Sterling. Wonderdog is at least excited to be there. (Hudler is excited by everything.)

I will trade Rex Hudler for John Sterling sight unseen and broadcast unheard.

No, you wouldn't. Sterling is horrible. As bad as Hawk, in my mind. Hudler is tolerable. The problem is that Royals fans were told they would hate him before they ever heard him, so he never had a chance.

Hudler is a terrible game caller

That may be. He's just doing color right now, no play by play.

In the Friday game, Sterling called two straight homers wrong. He is insufferable, and the less said aboutby Susan Waldman the better.

FIFY.

The problem is that Royals fans were told they would hate him before they ever heard him, so he never had a chance.

I had never heard of the man until I heard his call of a Billy Butler home run.

"The sound was LOUD and it travelled FAR."

I feel a little bad for disliking him, because he does seem to be trying hard. I just wish he wasn't trying so hard.

Rex Hudler broadcasting to Royals fans is like organizing a singalong at the battle of the Somme.

Double post.

Hudler at least has some enthusiasm for what he does, despite his lack of broadcasting talent; he's the equivalent of a likable dog you can't shake off as you walk down the street. In contrast, Sterling always appears to be slumming it with his shtick, and that he could be a semi-competent announcer if he wanted to. That's what makes him so infuriating. Hudler's merely an ex-ballplayer, and very few of them rise to the ranks of a Rich Ashburn in the booth.

Great call by Sterling just now. Mitch Moreland hits a homer in Texas.

"A shot in the Tigers Stadium upper deck!"

Great call by Sterling just now. Mitch Moreland hits a homer in Texas.

"A shot in the Tigers Stadium upper deck!"

Well, since the overhang at Rangers Ballpark has been compared to Tiger Stadium from day one, there's nothing really wrong with saying that. (This is assuming you weren't implying that Sterling forgot what ballpark he was in, and I don't think you were.) Personally, I just view it as the broadcast equivalent of a stopped clock being right twice a day.