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May 19, 2009

The Hallucinations Of John Sterling

Phil Mushnick, Post:
Every game played by the Yankees is a doubleheader -- the game that's played and the game [John] Sterling calls.

This weekend, the games Sterling described did not exist. Some examples:

In the eighth inning Saturday, Sterling called a game-tying home run by Hideki Matsui -- Sterling gave it his, "It is high ...!" routine, culminating with, "It is gone!" But the ball, as Sterling several seconds later acknowledged, didn't even reach the wall on the fly; it bounced over it. ...

In the fourth inning of Saturday's game, Sterling and Suzyn Waldman fabricated a story. Johnny Damon lost sight of a pop fly as he approached the stands along the left-field line. Damon missed the ball, plain and simple as that. ...

Sterling claimed the ball fell from Damon's glove. ... Waldman added, "He had to fight a fan with a glove." ... But it never happened, nothing even close. ...

Derek Jeter led off the bottom of the first [on Friday] with a line drive that was caught waist-high by Twins left fielder Denard Span in front of the warning track. Sterling, however, gave it his "Waaaay back!" treatment. Next he said the ball smacked against the wall. Finally, he said the ball was caught for an out. ...

In the top of the second, Sterling was so eager to describe a spectacular 6-4-3 double play, so eager to put his hollering pre-fab excesses to every play, he became the last in the house to notice that it wasn't a double play; the low throw to first wasn't caught. ...

And, despite it all, Sterling's on-air demeanor remains smug, haughty, condescending.
Some SoSHers comment:
jon abbey (a yankees fan): Yeah, I've listened to him do an inning or two on the radio only to later watch those same innings on DVR and find that he misdescribed what was going on to such an extent as to make listening to him pretty much pointless. I feel really bad for my blind friend who is a Yankees fan and who listens to the Sterling/Waldman combo ...

mikeford: Wait... how does someone outright LIE about whats going on (The Damon fan interference thing) and keep their job? It is one thing to be incompetent and suck at your job... it is entirely another to MAKE THINGS UP.
fjs.com, anyone?

10 comments:

  1. Horrible....Hideous...Frustrating...Moronic....just 4 words that describe John Sterling. I was going to start a blog this season that listed every missed call by him, but I lost track. He said during that extra innings Friday night game when Yanks played the Sox that Pedroia robbed Jeter of the game winning hit....however, the Sox were the home team and still were to come to bat. This guy is awful.

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  2. Luckily I have never listened to John Sterling. In fact, I find that enjoy the game more if I shut off the sound altogether!

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  3. He used to be a decent announcer and a benign personality. Those days are long gone.

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  4. I've been wanting to live-blog a game of his for a long time... sounds like I better get on it before he's fired!

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  5. I was going to start a blog this season that listed every missed call by him, but I lost track.

    You should try something a little less ambitious --like counting the grains of sand at a nearby beach.

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  6. This makes me want to listen every game. It's kinda like pro wrestling. All fake but made to look and sound real.

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  7. The reason he still has his job is the same reason the new yankees stadium was built and the same reason they have the biggest payroll with nothing show for it.

    The yankees as an organization, fanbase and media are all out of touch with reality. I should say though that some of the new york media is within reality which is funny as we all know from our weekly or sometimes daily installments of schadenfreude.

    Yankeephiles are like cowboy fans who think that having 5 superbowls in a bygone era really makes them a superior team to all others. They actually have shirts that say "Got 5" in reference to their super bowl trophies. I have seen similar from yankee hooligans. Got 26? I even saw the shirt with the yankees 26 vs our however many like that means something. Bottom line in this decade we have 2 they have 1. The fact that this is a fact and they still manufacture these kinds of shirts is a glaring example of how out of touch the empire is. It is counter-intuitive to pay gobs of money for a person who performed well elsewhere for however many years. I guess they never looked at the back of a topps baseball card and saw the bell curve of performance that EVERY player has due to age and wear. On that note, PLAY BALLLLL!

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  8. Bottom line in this decade we have 2 they have 1.

    This decade began on January 1, 2001 -- as did the new millennium -- so they actually got a big fat zeeeeee-row.

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  9. Debatable but I will agree as I have a dog in the fight.

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  10. Just think, it was exactly this sort of radio announcing that started the career of......Ronald Reagan!!!!!

    Really! :)

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