WFAN caller ‘Dr. Joe’ claims Suzyn Waldman wants Dave Sims to replace John Sterling: ‘She’s gonna kill me.’

If Dave Sims woke up to his phone blowing up from people asking about the New York Yankees radio booth, he has WFAN caller Dr. Joe to blame.

Less than one month into the Major League Baseball season, John Sterling made the surprising announcement that he was retiring from the New York Yankees radio booth after 36 years, closing the book on a legendary broadcast career spanning more than six decades. The Yankees and WFAN have used a rotating cast of announcers, led by Justin Shackil and Emmanuel Berbari, to fill Sterling’s immediate void. Other names such as Ryan Ruocco, Brendan Burke, and Ricki Ricardo have been mentioned as possible long-term replacements.

Friday morning, however, WFAN caller “Dr. Joe” joined Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti on their morning show and somewhat reluctantly mentioned long-time Seattle Mariners TV broadcaster Dave Sims as a favorite to be the radio voice of the Yankees. To steal an overused sports media phrase, there’s a lot to unpack here. The first of which might be, who is Dr. Joe?

WFAN caller “Dr. Joe” claims Suzyn Waldman floated Dave Sims to replace John Sterling pic.twitter.com/i1Tg6zeOgc

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 7, 2024

Making his second-ever call into WFAN’s morning show, Dr. Joe claimed he is close to the Yankees radio booth and the name Dave Sims has been thrown out to him. As Esiason and Giannotti pried Dr. Joe for more information, the caller eventually claimed he is the “radio broadcast doctor, I guess.”

Giannotti then asked Dr. Joe to reveal who told him about Dave Sims, prompting him to say it came from “someone who is still working in the booth.”

“Oh, Suzyn,” Esiason said confidently. “Suzyn told you that?”

And after five seconds of silence, Dr. Joe said, “She’s gonna kill me if she hears this. She’s gonna kill me. I won’t be a doctor anymore…you guys dragged that out of me, how dare you!”

It was truly amazing that Boomer and Gio were able to drag that out of someone as astute and willful as Dr. Joe, but many questions remain. Like, does the Yankees’ radio booth actually have its own doctor? Is Dr. Joe a real doctor? Should Dr. Joe still be practicing medicine? Does Dr. Joe actually know Suzyn Waldman? And is Dave Sims interested in leaving the Seattle Mariners TV booth to join the Yankees?

Waldman being interested in having Sims replace Sterling does make sense. Aside from Sims having established himself as a premier play-by-play voice with the Mariners, the broadcasters know each other from the early days of WFAN. Sims was a midday host on WFAN in the early ‘90s. And Waldman’s connection to the station goes far beyond her days as a Yankees radio announcer, having been the first-ever voice heard on WFAN when the station debuted on July 1, 1987.

WFAN weeknight host Keith McPherson later tempered Dr. Joe’s report, telling Boomer and Gio that he doesn’t know of any doctor in the Yankees radio booth. McPherson was on the radio call for a Yankees game earlier this season.

But regardless of how well Dr. Joe knows Suzyn Waldman or anyone in the Yankees radio booth, he at least served as proof that callers can still add value to a radio show.

[WFAN]