Longtime Yankees voice John Sterling retires

Longtime New York Yankees radio voice John Sterling is retiring from broadcasting effective immediately, the team announced Monday.

The Yankees will honor the 85-year-old in a pregame ceremony Saturday before they host the Tampa Bay Rays. He'll also speak to the media before the game and visit the radio booth during the broadcast.

"I am a very blessed human being. 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," Sterling said in a statement, per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. "It's all to my benefit, and I leave very, very happy. I look forward to seeing everyone again on Saturday."

Sterling had been reducing his workload over the last few years and stopped making most road trips in 2022. He'd been scheduled to return to the booth Friday.

Sterling, who's been paired with Suzyn Waldman since 2005, called 5,420 regular-season games and another 211 playoff contests with the Yankees. He was behind the microphone for 5,060 consecutive Yankees contests from 1989 until 2019, when he missed three games due to an illness, according to Andrew Marchand of The Athletic.

His enthusiastic style included personalized home-run calls for every Yankees player, and a trademark exaggerated cry of "Theeeeeee Yankees win!" to punctuate each Bronx Bombers victory.

Before joining the Yankees, Sterling spent nine years in Atlanta as the voice of the Braves and the NBA's Hawks. He also called basketball games for the Baltimore Bullets and New York/New Jersey Nets, and hockey for the NHL's New York Islanders, in the 1970s.