New York Yankees announcer John Sterling is nothing if not a professional.
The Yankees’ longtime radio voice was hit in the line of duty Saturday night during a game against the Boston Red Sox. With Yankees reliever Clay Holmes on the mound to close out a 3-1 win, Red Sox designated hitter Justin Turner racked up a full count then hit a pop-up foul directly behind home plate.
Sterling, who was working without regular partner Suzyn Waldman, called the play until the ball hit him in the forehead, and persevered to finish the game. You should pretty much hear it react to the impact in real time:
Sterling’s call before, during and after being hit by the ball:
“And now the 3-2. Swing on, pop foul here. [Thud] Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! It really struck me, I didn’t know it came back so far!
“So again it will be a 3-2. And the 3-2 is a foul on the ground.”
Turner’s batting attack ended in a groundout. Sterling stayed in the booth to finish the match.
According to The Athletic, the ball hit Sterling in the left eyebrow. He reportedly said the impact left him with “a bit of blood”, which was immediately treated with a bandage. He promised that wouldn’t stop him from calling the Yankees’ series finale against the Red Sox on Sunday:
“I’m not going to IL,” he said.
The incident contrasts with Sterling’s broadcast incidents in the recent past, which stemmed from him being too far from baseball rather than too close. While calling remote road games for the Yankees, he mistakenly called flyouts because multiple homers timeas well as once at home.
Sterling has called Yankees games since 1989, at one point racking up a streak of 5,060 games in a row that ended in 2019.