John Sterling to call Yankees playoff games on WFAN

John Sterling will come out of retirement this autumn for a “last hurrah” calling Yankees games, the longtime radio play-by-play man said on WFAN on Thursday.

Sterling said he will call the last two series of the regular season – at home against the Orioles and Pirates – followed by all playoff games, home and away.

But that will be the extent of his return. Sterling, 86, plans to retire for good after the Yankees’ final game of the postseason.

He originally retired on April 15, citing the difficulties of traveling at his age and a lack of passion for continuing to work on a regular basis.

The Yankees honored him before a game at Yankee Stadium five days later, and it appeared that was that.

But Sterling said he missed the day-to-day interactions with his longtime partner, Suzyn Waldman, and other people in and round the organization.

So when Chris Oliviero, New York Market President for Audacy, WFAN’s parent company, approached him with the notion of returning, Sterling was intrigued.

He said he took a few days to think about it, in part because, he said, “I feel a little sorry,” taking the place of the fill-ins who have worked most of the season.

That includes Justin Shackil, Emmanuel Berbari and Rickie Ricardo, all of whom are candidates to succeed Sterling as the No. 1 voice starting in 2025.

So are external candidates such as longtime Mariners announcer Dave Sims. That decision will not be made until after this season is over.

But in the end Sterling, who began in the Yankees booth in 1989, decided to take up Oliviero on his offer. The Athletic was first to report the news.

“This will give me a chance to (have a) last hurrah and work with Suzyn again,” Sterling said.

He said the playoffs were an attractive option because they do not feature the sort of extended road trips that are part of the regular season schedule.

“Broadcasting the game, that's the easiest thing I do,” Sterling said on WFAN. “I'm sitting down. I'm comfortable. I have a great partner. I've been doing this forever. I've been a Yankee fan since I was 8 years old . . . So the game itself is not a problem.

“My problem is I was getting tired going to places. And so this will only be a few weeks and I guess that'll be that. Not ‘I guess.’ That’ll be that.”

Yankees radio announcers officially work for Audacy, but the Yankees have approval rights on the team’s radio broadcasters and the team is on board with Sterling’s return.

In addition to Shackil, Berbari and Ricardo, WFAN has used Brendan Burke and Craig Carton on play-by-play and Brandon Tierney in Waldman’s place when she was ill.

Part of the motivation in returning for Sterling – and the desire to have him back on the part of fans – was the abruptness of his departure in April.

Sterling called his final game on April 7 and refused to so much as do a farewell inning in the booth the day he was honored.

"I’m happy John will be back, and it’ll feel good to have him in the booth with us," Shackil wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. "'The end' should not have been some random game in April. Hopefully, the Yankees give us all a long October run of John & Suzyn!"

Sterling said when he retired that he regretted not having made the decision in the offseason rather than doing so after working for one week, which included a long season-opening trip to Houston and Phoenix that took a toll on him.

Now, he only has to get through a postseason sprint that could last less than a week, a full month or somewhere in between.

“I kind of feel a little sorry for the guys who've been doing the games, and all of them, there's so many of them, they've done such a great job,” Sterling said.

“But they asked and I said yes, and now that I said yes, I'm getting to really look forward to it.”

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.