John Sterling was his vintage self on a day when the Yankees honored his legendary career.
He turned a retirement press conference into a stand-up bit, mixing together light-hearted greetings for reporters with tangents about memories — the home-run calls, the special Yankees seasons, a little bit of everything — that shaped a career as their play-by-play radio broadcaster for the past 35 years.
Sterling advised future broadcasters, tasked with replacing him on WFAN, to be themselves and find their own style.
He jokingly asked in the press conference room if this is “where [manager Aaron Boone] says, ‘I think he’s getting close?’ ”
And he used the title for Bing Crosby’s book — “Call Me Lucky” — to describe his own career.
Sterling, who retired Monday effective immediately after 5,420 regular-season broadcasts and 211 more in the postseason, called himself a “very, very fortunate individual.”
“In that time, person after person, group after group have come to me with a kindness, respect and love,” Sterling said while addressing fans, before later appearing on both WFAN and YES Network during the Yankees’ 2-0 loss to the Rays. “And how lucky can you be for people to celebrate what you do for a living?”
Before the game, Sterling was greeted with a standing ovation and a loud “John Sterling” chant during his on-field ceremony.
He walked toward the area near home plate after a video played with his iconic home-run calls, with Suzyn Waldman, his WFAN partner, introducing Sterling as the voice of the Yankees as she’d traditionally do on the radio broadcast.
“It’s like he gets in that chair and it just shoots life through him,” Boone said pregame, while recalling some of his favorite Sterling calls. “He’s at home. He’s in his office.”
Paul O’Neill, Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter made cameos on the scoreboard with messages, while Tino Martinez gave Sterling with a pair of the Yankees cuff links.
The Yankees also presented him with a silver microphone trophy, a jersey with the number 5,631 printed across the back for the number of Yankees games he called and a big-screen TV — adding to the other screens that Sterling has already installed at his Edgewater, N.J., apartment.
“I just hope everybody remembers that this is a man who lived his dream,” Waldman said while introducing Sterling at his pregame press conference. “This is all he ever wanted to do, was be like Mel Allen. And now for generations of people, he is the voice of the New York Yankees — to me, always will be.”
Sterling reiterated that, probably, he should’ve retired on March 1 or 15. But he tried to test it.
He took the first road trip to Houston and Arizona. And that’s when, he said, it became clear that “I didn’t want to work every day.” He didn’t have the same strength and stamina.
That turned Saturday — a weekend game in April, an early-season contest in the marathon of a season — into a celebration.
“If you’ve worked 64 years and on your next birthday you’re going to be 86,” Sterling said, “I think it’s time.”
