Non Dimenticar, John Sterling
“Anyone who doesn’t think the best hamburger place in the world is in his hometown is a sissy… and probably a security risk.”
— Calvin Trillin
This is one of my all-time favorite quotes, in large part because I believe it’s a philosophy that goes way beyond hamburgers. Anyone who doesn’t think the best …
Hamburger place
Barbecue joint
Ice cream shop
Hardware store
Pizza
Weather person
Farmer’s market
Fan spirit
…is in their hometown is at least slightly untrustworthy. I think now of St. Louis pizza. There is no foodstuff on planet Earth worse than St. Louis pizza. It flies in the face of that universal truth that pizza, like sex, is good even when it’s bad. There is nothing at all good about St. Louis pizza, not the texture, not the shape of a slice, not the monstrosity they use as cheese, nothing at all. If you’re stuck on an 18-hour flight where the only food option was St. Louis pizza, I’d eat the seat cushion.
AND YET… if I ever ran into a St. Louis person who did not defend to the death the honor of St. Louis pizza, I would wonder a little bit about their character.
More than hamburgers and pizza, though, there are longtime hometown baseball announcers. It is the sacred duty of any and all citizens to love their longtime hometown baseball announcer unconditionally. For me, growing up in Cleveland, that announcer was Herb Score, and while I was well aware that Herb was not exactly Vin Scully when it came to baseball poetry, that he would sometimes go so long without giving a score update that people called him “Herb ‘No’ Score,” that every day he would say at least one thing that made you go “Wha?” he will always be, for me, the best announcer in the world.
How could I not feel that way? He was the music of my childhood. He delivered all the Buddy Bell and Andre Thornton and Joe Charboneau home runs and he seemed as happy as I felt. He delivered all the Miguel Dilone infield fly balls, and Rick Waits gopherballs, and Victor Cruz blown saves, and there was sympathy in his tone. He didn’t like it any more than I did.
Herb Score was ours.
I think about that today after John Sterling somewhat abruptly retired on Monday after broadcasting New York Yankees games for 36 years. He is 85 years old, and he said a few weeks ago that this would be his last year. Because of some unnamed health concerns—the word, thankfully, is they are not life-threatening but more fatigue-related—he’s going to step down immediately. The Yankees will honor him at Saturday’s game.
Look, John Sterling’s style was never my thing… but it’s obvious that I was never supposed to like it. I am not a Yankees fan. I am the opposite of a Yankees fan. Every time he shouted “Theeeeeeeeee Yankees win!” it was, for me, less a celebration and more a taunt.
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Then, John Sterling was not announcing Yankees baseball games for me. He was announcing those games for the real fans, the ones who believe in the power of Derek Jeter and Anthony Volpe, who count on the sturdiness of CC Sabathia and Gerrit Cole, who stay with the radio a little bit longer because next inning Aaron Judge is due up.
“Here comes the Judge!” Sterling would shout whenever Judge fully connected, and the jubilation that stirred from Yonkers to Asbury Park, from Medford to Bridgewater, cannot be measured. It was John Sterling’s voice ringing out when the Yankees were atrocious, and Steve Sax couldn’t make the throw to second base and the club’s Opening Day starter was Scott Sanderson. It was John Sterling’s voice ringing out when the Yankees were unbeatable, when opponents could not hope to make it through that lineup of Jetes and Bernie and Tino and Jorge and Paul without taking on some heavy damage.
And it was John Sterling’s voice singing the Dean Martin song “Non Dimenticar” two Sundays ago when Giancarlo Stanton blasted a grand slam as the Yankees beat the Blue Jays.
Thirty-six years of memories. Thirty-six years of triumphs. Thirty-six years of losses. Thirty-six years of home runs and strikeouts and inning-ending double plays and heart-stopping plays at the plate and World Series trophies and routine ground balls to second and all those empty spaces that needed to be filled with a story, a bit of trivia, an out-of-town score, a personal observation, talk about the weather.
I’m not saying that every single Yankees fan loved the way John Sterling called a game. I’m saying that, after a while, such things no longer matter. John Sterling became Yankees baseball the way that Ernie Harwell became Tigers baseball, and Denny Matthews became Royals baseball, and Dave Niehaus became Mariners baseball, and Marty and Joe became Reds baseball and, yes, Herb Score became Indians baseball.
Beyond all that, John Sterling is—by all accounts—an extremely nice man who treated everybody around him well and someone who never once took for granted the lucky life he has lived.
“I am a very blessed human being,” he wrote in his retirement statement. “I have been able to do what I wanted, broadcasting for 64 years. As a little boy growing up in New York as a Yankees fan, I was able to broadcast the Yankees for 36 years. It’s all to my benefit, and I leave very, very happy.”
I like those words together: Very, Very, Happy. They sum things up, don’t they? For those of you who grew up with the Yankees over the last half century or so and were happy, so very, very happy, every time Theeeeeeeeeeeee Yankees did win, there will never be another John Sterling.
Hey, do you want to help out a young college student? Of course you do! A friend of my daughter’s at Wake Forest, Ann Ellis, has put together a short survey asking for feelings about media and politics. It’s anonymous—no email address or anything else required—and she wants you to know that the data will be deleted immediately after she analyzes it for her class. Hey, if you have a couple of minutes, it’s totally painless.
"There's a Posnanski essay and... it is high! It is... far! IT IS....... GONE!!! Joltin' Joe PozzzzzNANSKI, the infinitely prime pride of Euclid, WORDS UP!"
I was in my mid/late 20s during the three years I lived in Brooklyn, NY. Great years to be a young-ish punk-power pop-rock'n'roll musician, still hadn't wrapped my head around the notion that packed theaters across the nation and thousands of dollars from licensing the publishing of songs to movies and commercials (what, me sell out?) was unlikely to be. I loved living there so much. And among other noises, Mets and Yankees radio baseball was part of the soundtrack of my life back then. 660am for the Mets, 880am for the Yankees. Yes, I preferred the Mets, like I prefer a bakery-fresh delicious slice of chocolate cake to a half-eaten Snickers handed to me by a hobo under a bridge.
In NYC circa 2007-2009, even with the financial crisis, the following equation held: me, the broke musician, had a lot less money and a lot more band van than you, the white-collar professional. So to make rent and beer, I worked odd jobs, none more satisfying than Man With A Van. I'd wake up late mornings, walk to the nearby coffeeshop (no wifi at the apartment), and post under several different accounts ads for light moving service. "FRIENDLY MAN WITH VAN!" "LET ME USE MY BAND'S VAN TO HELP YOU MOVE!" "NO JOB TOO SMALL!" I'd toss in little jokes and current events and sports references to try and let people know that, while I might have been a weirdo, I was the nice kind of weirdo, the kind who wouldn't rip you off (or worse). It worked. I lived very comfortably, working only when I wanted to, and I never lacked for pizza money and always paid my bar tab on time.
Speaking of. At night - in my imagination as I type, it's a warm, humid, high 70s night in late May - I'd walk from my apartment near where MacGuinness Blvd goes up into Greenpoint from the BQE* about one mile to my favorite bar on the corner of Franklin and Greenpoint Ave. I had a walkman - an old walkman from the 90s that refused to die - and I'd listen to baseball. Like I said a little bit ago, I preferred the Mets. But broadcast-wise? Half the time, I'd tune into the John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman broadcast. As I recall, the majority of my Yankee fan friends were sick of John ("He's arrogant!" "He makes the game about himself!") and indifferent to Suzyn (didn't they realize that, uh, she was the only female baseball in-game broadcaster?). Perhaps this made me like the two all the more! So I'd grab a $0.75 coffee from the bodega one block up, and then sip and stroll to the bar, with the sounds of late spring New York baseball in my ears.
Those were good times. Thanks for the send-off for Mr. Sterling, Joe. It was very nice to read. And I hope that, after he retires, the New York Yankees never hit a home run again, ever.
*people who know NYC and are probably geolocating the approximate location of my apartment at the time: yes, typical Williamsburg hipster. We're almost dinosaurs now; all my friends are pushed into Ridgewood and deep Bushwick, or even into Queens and Astoria or Sunnyside
Good luck to Ann. Unless her research question is “How do baseball nerds feel about politics and media?” her survey data is about to be heavily skewed.