Yankees’ Suzyn Waldman details what made John Sterling great, their unique friendship, home runs calls on sad day

NEW YORK — Suzyn Waldman prepared herself. She knew John Sterling, her partner in the Yankees’ radio booth for two decades, was in his final days. They’d had some good days in the days, weeks and months following a heart attack in January.

Visit sport-tr.bet for more information.

The phone call that she knew “was coming” arrived in the middle of the night Sunday.

The Yankees radio voice for 5,631 regular-season and postseason games from 1989-2014, including an amazing 5,060 in a row at the start of his run, was gone.

Sterling, 87, took his last breath in a hospital close to his Edgewater, N.J., home.

Before Waldman and Michael Kay emceed a pre-game ceremony honoring Sterling on Monday, she shared memories and stories of her long-time colleague and very close friend outside the Yankees clubhouse with reporters:

How tough a day it is for you. Tough day to work a game?

Suzyn Waldman: “Well, it’s not a tough day to work, that’s for sure, because John didn’t miss games. He only missed one game that I can remember when his sister passed away. But, no, this is not hard at all because John would want this. It’s a tough day. You don’t think it’s going to be tough when you know something’s coming. You’re waiting for a phone call. Over the last couple of months, you knew the phone call was coming. But when it does, it’s still really shocking because it’s hard to believe a world without this man in it.”

What was your first impression of John when you met him all those years ago?

Suzyn Waldman: “Well, the first thing: I was his update person on WFAN in 1987 and he was doing a talk show. He came up for All-Star week and he did the week. I remember he came in and I was the update person, and he stood up, and he cupped his hand over his ear, and he talked standing up for four hours. And I said, ‘This must be a really interesting person.’ He could talk about anything. He could talk about any sport at any time. And so the exchange between him and the callers was unbelievable.

“He also was a pretty nasty talk show host, people. John would really yell at people and call them stupid. But I thought what a fascinating person he is. And that’s when we became friends. We found out we had the same taste of music. We read the same books. He was a voracious reader. I don’t know if people knew that in-between innings John would be reading. He would come right back into it because that was his life, baseball. But he could turn it off, read a couple of pages ... ‘And now we’re in the bottom of the seventh.’ He’d come right back. It was extraordinary.”

How would you describe him as a play-by-play announcer?

Suzyn Waldman: “When John started, when he was younger — we all age — he was extraordinary. If you go back and listen to the calls ... Listen to the World Series calls. Listen to him describe a play and don’t watch it. It’s perfect. He was perfection. And a lot of people thought he was a little flowery. He was very New York, very what I used to think of New York, which is probably why we got along. But if you listen to his (NBA) play-by-play in Atlanta, he is on the Dominique Wilkins-Larry Bird game. Listen to that. It’s extraordinary. And basketball is a lot harder to do and get it perfect. But when you listen, turn off the television, turn off the YouTube. Don’t look at it and listen. It all came from his heart. It came from his gut. The World Series 1996, when they’re all on the pitcher’s mound, all from his heart. He didn’t have anything written down. That’s why people loved him. Some didn’t, but fans did.”

A lot of people make a connection with John from his home run calls. Did he always tell you what he was gonna say?

Suzyn Waldman: “Never! I was surprised. Sometimes I’d have to turn the sound off because I’d be laughing so hard. The only one I just sat there was Giancarlo Stanton one. And I said, ‘Really?’ You know, he’s not Italian, right? He said, ‘I know, I know.’ But he did it for a reason and he was going to stick with it. He wasn’t going to change. We’d go into restaurants and little kids are doing ‘Non si può’’ whatever it was. I couldn’t do it, but he did.. But no, he never told me (in advance).”

What kind of joy did he derive from doing those home run calls? That became his thing.

Suzyn Waldman: “He used to call it his cottage industry, but it didn’t start like that. The Bern Baby, Bern (for Bernie Williams) was the first, and it came out of joy for what was going on. And it was just supposed to be for special people and special things, A-bomb for A-Rod, which by the way people wanted him to stop until A-Rod’s mother decided that she really loved it. So he put it back and said, ‘The heck with everybody. The Georgie juiced one (for Jorge Posada), somebody called and said, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t say that about (steroids). And he said, ‘I didn’t say Georgie was juiced. I said, Georgie juiced one.’ The heck with everybody. And people loved it.

“And then players started to come to him and said, ‘I want one.’ I remember Nick Swisher, (Sterling) called him once, ‘Jolly Old Saint Nick’ and up comes Swisher to the back of the plane. He said, ‘I don’t like that. I’m not Jolly Old Saint.’ That’s where ‘Swishalicious’came from, because John changed it for that. Austin Romine came up and said, I need one. And that’s where he got Romie my homie’ when he hit his home run. But players wanted it, and it never started that way.”

Did you guys have chemistry right away?

Suzyn Waldman: “Oh, God yes. I mean, we were friends. This is like my brother. I’ve known him 40 years. We were friends from that first day I met him because I just thought he was interesting. We liked the same shows, we liked the same books, we talked the same language. We came from the same generation. We were educated the same way. So when he said something, I understood what he meant. No, this was pretty special.

“And by the way, if it weren’t for John, I wouldn’t have gotten this job. When people were saying, ‘You can’t have a woman do Yankees radio,’ George (Steinbrenner) came over and said (to John), ‘What do you think of this? A woman?’ He said, ‘I think a woman is wonderful, as long as it’s this woman. Go ahead and hire her.’ And he did that also with Michael Kay. A lot of people wanted that job. A lot of players wanted that job and John said to George, ‘This is who I want.’ So both of us owe him a lot.”

You have a background as a performer. Did that give you a special appreciation for John’s touch as a showman?

Suzyn Waldman: “Yes, because I am, too. So I understood that a lot. And I think he understood to whom we were speaking. We were doing Yankee games for Yankee fans. Most of them are pretty sophisticated, and they loved it. People say, ‘John was this and John was that.’ John would say on the radio where we were going to dinner and 50 people would show up with their little kids: ‘Do your call for John?’ … ‘Mr. Sterling, can you do this for my son?’ And they would all do, ‘Yankees win, Yankeeeeees win!’ and ‘Bern baby, Bern.’ Little children! He was a showman and he knew it, but he knew where he was.”

Sports radio in New York sometimes talked about John Sterling (negatively). Did it bother him when people criticized him or called him out?

Suzyn Waldman: “Yes. He was very emotional. John had no guile. He didn’t understand it when people were mean to him, because he could never be mean to anybody. And he didn’t know how to fight back because that wasn’t who he was. He would say, ‘Well, I don’t care what this guy said.’ He cared very much. ... He had very deep feelings about everything and it hurt him very much. I know that he said he didn’t care, but he did.”

What do you feel is a proper way for the organization to honor his legacy?

Suzyn Waldman: “I don’t know. I know they’re having some kind of ceremony (Monday night). He was here 40 years. I hope there’s at least an arm band or a patch (on the jersey sleeve).”

What was John like away from the field to you?

Suzyn Waldman: “He was just like John. That’s who he was. I’ve said this before: He was like an older brother. We talked every day. During the winter we went to dinner. We talked about the same things. The last call I got from him from the hospital. ‘You know what was going on in Boston. What happened with Alex Cora?’ He left it on my landline (when the Yankees were on the road),’ but he (said), ‘I trust you, you have to know.’ It was a very unique relationship.

“But I do want to say that this man: He’s the only person I’ve ever met who did everything he ever wanted to do in his life. Ever. There’s nothing that he didn’t do, and he was proudest of his children, who took care of him during this. Extraordinary. And don’t forget, he was not with his wife. And those children adored him. And he was so proud of them. That was his biggest accomplishment, and he would want every everyone to know that.

“But I think this man lived life to the fullest. It should be a celebration, not a mourning thing. Who lives their life like that and is able to accomplish everything from the time he was six years old? This is what he wanted to do, and he did it. And for a very long time, he did it better than anybody.”

Read the original article on NJ.com. Add NJ.com as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Read full story at source