“Years ago, when I was angling to write about TV and/or radio absurdities,” recalls the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick, “it could take three, four days to gather the goods. Today? Same day delivery. Cake walk, can of corn.” A shame for both (?) the readers and Phil then, that his column doesn’t appear each day…and a critique of WCBS’ resident baseball blowhard is what passes for revelatory.
Sunday afternoon on WCBS Radio, John Sterling (above), into the seventh inning of the Yankees-Orioles, four times had launched his “It is high! . . . It is far! . . .” home run call. And not until he pulled it out a fifth time was a home run actually hit. In a game that included one home run, Sterling, in service to his relentless self-promotion, called five of them. Nothing can stop him.
But that the “Voice of the New York Yankees” may be the worst broadcaster in professional sports has been a 20-year absurdity. That he would continually deprive a radio-reliant audience of accurate descriptions – not to mention creating the false hope of Yankee homers hit so high and so far that they’re caught for outs – while continually suffering the embarrassment of his selfish and dishonest devices, reveals a man so stuck on himself that we all get stuck.
The logical notion that Sterling would grow weary of making a jerk of himself is no longer a logical consideration.
Oh, Moosh. By what standard is John Sterling’s being a bad announcer news, or timely in any way? Are you sure this wasn’t a best-of column from 1997?
Next he’ll declare that Derek Jeter has the intangibles that every team needs to succeed.
Sterling is the worst thing that has happened to The Yankees in decades. He even stole the “It is high, It is far and it is gone” from one time Yankee broadcaster Bob Gamere who used it years before Sterling got the job. He is a buffoon and a self serving idiot. I was born in the Bronx 62 years ago and naturally grew up with Mel Allen, Red barber, Bill White, Phil Rizzutto, Bobby Murcer and Frank Messur among others. Sterling doesn’t belong in their league