Packed House Sports · Tribute
Farewell to the Voice of the Bronx
“It is high, it is far, it is gone.” John Sterling was more than a broadcaster — he was the sound of Yankees baseball for an entire generation of fans.
Packed House Sports extends its deepest condolences on the passing of John Sterling — born John Sloss — the unmistakable voice of the New York Yankees for three decades. For generations of fans, Sterling didn’t just call the games; he gave them a language, a texture, a rhythm all his own. His was the voice that made every home run feel like a minor miracle and every ordinary at-bat feel like it mattered.
Across those 36 seasons and thousands of broadcasts, his voice became part of the rhythm of baseball itself — a constant through eras of change and championship runs alike. His legacy will live on in the echoes of every call, every personalized home run phrase, and every fan who grew up with the game in his era through his words.
A career that spanned sports and cities
Long before he became synonymous with Yankee Stadium on the airwaves, Sterling built one of the most eclectic broadcast résumés in American sports. After adopting his now-iconic professional name, he launched his career in Baltimore as the play-by-play voice for the Baltimore Bullets during the 1970–71 NBA season, while simultaneously calling football for Morgan State from 1971 to 1978.
His arrival in New York in 1971 as a WMCA talk show host opened the door to a remarkable stretch of sports broadcasting that touched nearly every major franchise in the market — the New York Raiders of the WHA, the New York Stars of the WFL, the New York Islanders alongside Bob Lawrence, and the New York/New Jersey Nets of the ABA and NBA, primarily partnered with Mike DeTomasso. Between 1975 and 1980, he balanced his talk show duties with Nets and Islanders games across WMCA, WVNJ, WOR-TV, and SportsChannel New York.
The Atlanta chapter
After his initial New York run, Sterling spent nearly a decade in Atlanta — a period that would quietly shape the broadcaster he’d become. He hosted a sports call-in show on WSB while covering the Braves from 1982 to 1987 and the Hawks from 1981 to 1989 for Turner Sports. It was a chapter that sharpened his voice and deepened his feel for the game before destiny called him back north.
The Yankee years
Sterling returned to New York in 1989 to become the radio voice of the Yankees on WABC, beginning what would become a legendary tenure spanning generations of players, playoff runs, and pennant races. He would later make the move with the broadcast to WFAN in 2013, working alongside beloved partners including Jay Johnstone, Joe Angel, Michael Kay, Charley Steiner, and Suzyn Waldman — all the way through his retirement in 2024.
His personalized home run calls became part of Yankees lore in their own right. Whether you loved them or found them theatrical, they were undeniably his — expressions of pure, unfiltered joy that became a signature no other broadcaster dared to replicate.
Our thoughts are with his family, his colleagues, and the entire Yankees community. The booth will be quieter without him — and so will the summer nights.