Having been the New York Yankees play-by-play announcer for more than 30 years, John Sterling is well known for his exuberant calls. He’s also well known for making the occasional flub. In New York’s game against the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday, Sterling had a call that gave us both.
With a runner on base and the Yankees trailing by two in the bottom of the eighth inning, Giancarlo Stanton drilled a ball to deep left field. The fans in the building thought the ball was gone off of the bat. Sterling did, too, saying “That ball is high. It is far. It is gone.”
There was just one problem. As Sterling noted seconds later, the ball was actually caught.
An all-timer from John Sterling.
Shades of the Chip Caray classic "Line drive! Base hit! Caught out there!" pic.twitter.com/Rdjvky1sm6
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 14, 2022
In 2021, Sterling had multiple flubs. One when he called a replay of an Aaron Judge home run from the night before as though it had just happened. But Sterling was broadcasting that game remotely (the Yankees were in Seattle, he was in New York) and he was at the mercy of his monitor.
In the Yankees Wild Card Game loss to the Boston Red Sox, Sterling called a Stanton home run that actually banged off of the Green Monster. But to be fair, Matt Vasgersian made the same mistake. And the Green Monster’s height can throw announcers off, as Stanton’s ball there was high enough to clear any other wall in the league.
But Sterling is certainly used to calling games at Yankee Stadium by now and he’s not broadcasting the game remotely. Furthermore, while Stanton did hit the ball well, it wasn’t as though Toronto’s Raimel Tapia went over the wall to catch it. He didn’t even make that good of a catch.
No, Sterling’s excitement got the better of him here. This was just a flub.
