NEW YORK — You can’t predict foul balls, Suzyn.
John Sterling, the legendary 84-year-old radio voice of the Yankees, became the latest victim of a decades-old rivalry with the Red Sox on Saturday night.
A foul ball hit Sterling in the head in the ninth inning of a 3-1 win over Boston. Justin Turner’s foul ball on a 3-2 count with a runner on first base and two outs against Yankees reliever Clay Holmes circled back into the netting behind home plate and then soared into the radio broadcast booth.
The baseball hit Sterling on the left eyebrow. Aside from “a little blood,” Sterling said he’s fine and will be back in the booth for Sunday night’s rubber match.
“I’m not going to IL,” he said.
At the time, Sterling was without his longtime analyst Suzyn Waldman, who left at the top of the inning to come down for postgame interviews.
Fans listening live heard the incident. “Oh! Oh! Oh! It really hit me,” Sterling said. “I didn’t know it was going to come back.”
And then, that was it. The veteran immediately moved on to the next pitch, which was a foul grounder that extended the at-bat. Turner eventually ended the game with a grounder to third base.
It was an impressive display of resilience from Sterling, who missed 23 consecutive games from May 11 to June 6 with a cold and attended his children’s graduations. Sterling has been the primary play-by-play voice of the Yankees since 1989.
From the day he started, he didn’t miss a game until July 2019.
In the last few seasons, he began to take a reduced workload. At the start of this season, he is scheduled to broadcast 130 of the Yankees’ 162 regular-season games.
Emmanuel Berbari, a WFAN Yankees postgame show host, was in the booth when Sterling was hit. As soon as they realized what had happened, Berbari and another station employee immediately went to the stadium’s scoreboard booth and asked for Band-Aids.
Berbari was happy to see that Sterling was OK.
“Not only did he call the next pitch,” Berbari said, “he also gave the classic oomph on the last call. It was an amazing performance.
And, Berbari said, Sterling joked about the scary incident after the final out: “That’s how hard you have to be as a Yankees broadcaster.”
(Photo: Rich Schultz/Getty Images)