Remembering John Sterling
PLUS: SHARING A BIRTHDAY WITH WILLIE MAYS
Reader Reacts
“I read your comparison of Murakami and Schwarber and by my count, only three were useful. What happened to the traditional average, OBP, slugging, OPS, home runs, RBI’s, clutch hitting and WAR? Those stats are plenty enough to judge.”
— Brian Greenberg, Long Island, NY
Pregame Pepper
Tarik Skubal’s sudden elbow surgery is exactly the reason Atlanta baseball operations chief Alex Anthopoulos refuses to offer long-term contracts to pitchers . . .
The defending two-time AL Cy Young Award winner, in his walk year with Detroit, won’t return until well after the All-Star Game . . .
The difference in Houston’s 2-1 win over the Dodgers Tuesday night was a home run (his second of the season) by little-used utility infielder Brendan Shewmake — against the otherwise-brilliant Shohei Ohtani . . .
With a 25-10 record as the week began, the Braves were off to their best start since they were called the Boston Beaneaters in 1892 . . .
They never had a division lead in 2021 or 2022 as large as they had on Monday morning, May 4 -- 8 1/2 games over the second-place Marlins and easily the biggest bulge in any of the six divisions . . .
With switch-hitting second baseman Ozzie Albies playing like an All-Star again, you can bet the Braves will exercise his $7 million club option for 2027 . . .
Albies, the shortest player in the National League, ranks among the NL leaders in hits and often bats third for new manager Walt Weiss . . .
White Sox pitcher Shane Smith, a recent All-Star, will miss at least two weeks on the Triple-A injured list due to a right rotator cuff strain after posting a 10.80 ERA in his first two AL starts this season and then a 5.27 mark in 13 2/3 innings after being optioned to AAA Charlotte . . .
Red Sox pitcher Ranger Suarez, signed as a free agent, left his last start with hamstring tightness but the injury is not believed to be serious . . .
That 17-1 win by Boston before Alex Cora’s post-game exit as manager was the most lopsided in baseball history for any manager in his last game.
Leading Off
A Brief Tribute to John Sterling
By Dan Schlossberg
Even though I am a lifetime resident of the New York-New Jersey Metropolitan Area, I am not and never have been a fan of either the Yankees or the Mets.
But I am a fan of players and officials of both teams, past and present.
Max Fried, the second-year Yankees left-hander whose talents could certainly produce a Cy Young Award as soon as this season, is one of them. So are Howie Rose, the retiring radio voice of the Mets, and Jay Horwitz, with whom I started my career with the Passaic Herald-News when we were both college interns — and when that daily paper existed.
John Sterling also falls into the category of friend not foe.
I knew him many years, when he had a sports talk show on WMCA and also when he was a broadcaster for a team best known at that time as The Bad-News Braves.
Sterling was 87 when he died earlier this week. Radio Voice of the Yankees for 36 seasons, he was over-the-top and pompous but always cheerful and knowledgable.
When the Yankees won, he told his audience, “Theeeeeeeeeeeeee Yankees win !!”
Sterling, who formed a famous 1-2 punch behind the mic with would-be opera star Suzyn Waldman, once broadcast 5,060 consecutive games. Even Cal Ripken, Jr. couldn’t challenge that record.
Like the fictitious Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Sterling started at a tiny radio station in tiny Wellsville, NY during the late 1950s and worked for eight decades — a longevity mark far beyond the best of Julio Franco, not to mention the Generalisimo who shared his surname.
I once invited him to speak at a New Jersey Little League banquet and drove with him to the New Brunswick venue. Once there, he took off one of his gaudy World Series rings and passed it around to the room full of awestruck kids.
He knew he would get it back.
Always smiling and pleasant, John Sterling was a good guy who will be missed. Not everybody agreed with his broadcast style but his devotion to his craft was rare. And it will be tough for anyone to follow.
We’ll miss you, John. And so will the game he loved.
HtP weekend editor Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ covers baseball for Lucas Communications, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, Sports Collectors Digest, Memories & Dreams, and assorted other outlets. He’s also the author of 43 baseball books. Contact Dan by email at ballauthor@gmail.com.
Cleaning Up
Willie and I Were Birthday Boys This Week
By Dan Schlossberg
The late, great Willie Mays shared my birthday. He used to tell people he didn’t mind sharing with me, although I would have much preferred sharing with my personal favorite, Hank Aaron.
I once told my friend Ira Silverman, who actually shared Aaron’s Feb. 5 birth date, that I would gladly trade my birthday for his — and would even throw in a pair of minor-leaguers to make the deal even.
I turned 78 on Wednesday, a birth date Willie and I also shared with George Clooney, who is 14 years younger, and the State of Israel, whose War of Independence officially ended on May 6, 1948. Amazingly, when I reached Bar Mitzvah age in 1961, my birthday and my celebration actually fell on Shabbat, which coincidentally fell on May 6 that year.
Nobody else I know was able to celebrate that special occasion on their actual birthday.
By the time I hit 13, I was already confirmed a baseball fan, collecting cards and even producing my own personal magazines, using clippings and some of my own writing, on the yellow X-Ray paper discarded by my dad, a radiologist.
I still have those issues tucked away in my basement.
For baseball, 1961 was a milestone season. The American League added two expansion teams, the Los Angeles Angels and second-edition Washington Senators, and pitching was so poor that Roger Maris finished the season with 61 homers — the only time in his career he hit as many as 40.
He was voted American League MVP for the second successive season but, like Dale Murphy, never reached Cooperstown despite the back-to-back trophies.
Throughout the years, May 6 has been a red-letter date in baseball history.
It included Babe Ruth’s first home run, in 1915; Ty Cobb’s fifth home run over a two-game span in 1925; and no-hitters by Cliff Chambers (1951) and the unforgettable Bobo Holloman (1953), who won three times in a career that lasted just that season and never again pitched a complete game. The no-hitter came in his first start.
Other May 6 events included a win by Anthony Young (1994) after a record 29 defeats in a row and a 20-strikeout game by Cubs rookie Kerry Wood in a 2-0 victory over the Houston Astros, whom he limited to one hit.
And let’s not forget long-time Phillies broadcaster Larry Andersen, born on May 6, 1953 and later traded by the Boston Red Sox to the Houston Astros for an unknown minor-league prospect named Jeff Bagwell. Andersen’s claim to fame as a pitcher was making one solitary start in 17 seasons.
HtP weekend editor Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ will be signing books in Cooperstown inside the Hall of Fame at 1:00 on July 2 and in front of Willis Monie Books on Main Street from 11-1 on July 25. His email is ballauthor@gmail.com.
Extra Innings: Bad Situation Gets Worse in Flushing
“It’s tough, obviously. You lose your everyday shortstop and the guy that comes up that is getting the everyday opportunity here now is hurt. Somebody else is going to have an opportunity.”
— Beleaguered Mets manager Carlos Mendoza on losing back-up shortstop Ronny Mauricio to injury
Mauricio broke his thumb while making a foolish and totally unnecessary head-first slide into first base . . .
He joined teammates Kodai Senga, Jorge Polcano, Luis Robert Jr., and Francisco Lindor on the IL . . .
If Mauricio was trying to deflect attention away from his .209 batting average, he succeeded . . .
Lindor has been out since April 22 and will miss at least another two weeks while his left calf strain heals . . .
The Mets (11-22) started this week with baseball’s worst record, sitting 12 1/2 games behind the first-place Braves (24-10) in the cellar of the National League East . . .
Then they arrived in Denver during a winter storm warning, with heavy accumulations of snow in the forecast . . .
First the Mets were buried in the standings — then in the stadium.
Know Your Editors
Here’s the Pitch is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles the Monday issue with Dan Freedman [dfreedman@lionsgate.com] editing Tuesday and Jeff Kallman [easyace1955@outlook.com] at the helm Wednesday and Thursday. Original editor Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com], does the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Former editor Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] is now co-director [with Benjamin Chase and Jonathan Becker] of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America, which publishes this newsletter and the annual ACTA book of the same name. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HtP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.