October 19, 1977- WMCA John Sterling Show (Day After Yankees Won World Series)
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- Опубліковано 17 вер 2024
- -Back in the 1970s, John Sterling was the only game in town for sports talk on the radio in New York on WMCA. His approach was slightly abrasive, where he would be prone to hang up on callers (a style influenced by famed political talk radio host Bob Grant, who occupied the time slot before Sterling) with the phrase "Give it a rest!". Sterling did this show while also doing play by play for the New York Islanders and New York/New Jersey Nets (as well as earlier stints doing the New York Raiders hockey team of the WHA and the New York Stars of the World Football League).
-Very little of Sterling's talk show work survives. I have previously uploaded the program that aired after the Yankee game on the day Billy Martin was hired as Yankee manager in August 1975. Here is the program from the night after the Yankees won their first World Series since 1962 thanks to Reggie Jackson's three home runs. John takes calls in his inimitable style and later shifts topics to talk with Oakland Raiders executive Al Locasale (the Raiders were in town to play the Jets following Sunday). During the calls some interesting details come out regarding the fact that Vin Scully had refused to take part in the radio broadcast arrangements for the World Series which was why Ross Porter, the #2 voice on the Dodgers did the radio games in New York. The talk also reveals the hopes that the Yankees would continue their association on WMCA which dated back to 1971 but ultimately, the Yankees left WMCA over the winter and began doing their games the following year on all-news station WINS. The Mets would ironically fill the baseball void on WMCA by moving over from WNEW the next year.
-Sterling would soon leave the New York market for the short-lived Enterprise Radio Network in 1981 and then seven years in Atlanta with the Braves and Hawks before returning to New York in 1989 as the radio voice of the Yankees. Regardless of your feelings about him, he has made his mark in New York radio history and this program is a fascinating insight into how big he was back then, in the days when there was no such thing as WFAN.
-This unedited recording includes news and sports reports from Mutual. WMCA had previously been carrying news from ABC Information Radio but switched to Mutual starting in 1977.
![Round The Horne! Series 4.3 [E12 to 16 Incl. Chapters] 1968 [High Quality]](/img/n.gif)
He’s really been around for a long time. Sad to see him finally hang it up but he’s beyond a legend in NY.
Thanks so much for this. I would look forward to any others you have to share
This is a great NY radio artifact.
Listening to this it's, frankly, easy to understand why sports shows/sports radio was not a thing back then. This is excruciating.
Well it lasted more than seven years, which in those days was a very good run for any talk show. It certainly did have a following.
@@epaddon Meant to comment on this about a year ago when I listened to it. Your WMCA stuff is gold, thanks. I lstened to Sterling all those years. Actually, started with Jack Spector who had the show before Sterling came to NY. Sure brings back how brutally condescending Sterling could be with callers. The kinder, gentler John who occasionally did shows on WFAN ? That isn't WMCA John.
Not sure if you are of my vintage. If you are, do you remember when Bob Grant left WMCA and Sterling took that slot over. IIRC, it didn't last that long, maybe a year at most, but he took over.
He had this one tick that drove me nuts. Well, he had more than one. Here is that one, though. Callers calling up to crticize Billy Martin's strategy. So many times he answered with, don't you think Martin wants to win the game? If that is the criteria, you have just removed the second guess from virtually any move in the history of baseball.
Don't you think the Red Sox were trying to win when they traded Lyle for Danny Cater? A historically bad trade. Let's not criticize it, though, since they wanted to win when they did it.
Used to drive me nuts.
"Don't you think Martin wants to win?" was I guess the 70s way of trying to tell the callers, "You just can't predict baseball!" :) I only have vague memories of when John was doing WMCA but his name was still familiar to me. This does show a different John from today and one that clearly was showing the Bob Grant style influence from back then. Still, it's great having this and I was glad I was able to phone in to John when he was subbing on FAN a year ago after Christmas to let him know I had these recordings (because he had brought up earlier in the program how Mel Allen kept wishing the recording of the World Series postgame had been saved).
As John Sterling got older, he had a little bit of a southern accent because he worked for TBS in the 1980s. You can hear his New York accent in 1977.
Great! Thank you and keep them coming..
WMCA was the Yankees' flagship from 1971-77, so Game 6 of the '77 WS was the last Yankee game WMCA would do, though they carried the CBS Radio broadcast of it, as back then, all the stations on an MLB team's network had to carry the national, as opposed to the local, broadcast. At 27:16, best way to dispose of an old car would be to call a junkyard, I would think. I'd guess you'd get free towing. I can tell that's John Sterling. Hard to believe he's now 84. Posting 7-9-22.
The Great John Sterling..
He was the Sports pope before Mike Francesa
For someone born in the late 80s, this was as fascinating to listen to as it was excruciating. Sterling talks so slowly and is barren excitement - on the night the Yankees won their first World Series in 15 years, and off the most magnificent performance by a ball player up to that point.
Sterling has what can only be described as contempt for the callers. He's unfriendly and disinterested in what they have to say, like he's stuck in a room with his elderly in-laws.
Been listening to sports radio for 20 years, but really hate hosts like this and would have disregarded this show had I been around back then.
I understand that mindset for one who didn't live through this era. Contextually, John's abrasive style then had to do with the fact that he followed political talk show host Bob Grant on WMCA who was *really* known for his "insult" approach with callers and hanging up on them. It was a style that WMCA really encouraged back in the day. And back then, this was also the only game in town for sports talk. It was considered a niche thing of the highest order and the idea that 24 hour sports talk and news was possible would have seemed laughable then. So yes, this is a style that wouldn't fly at all today (and whenever John would guest host on an FAN program he never brought back that WMCA style/attitude) and it does need to be understood in the context of the times when 24 hour sports news and talk was on no one's radar back then.
This broadcast is b4 the age of PR speak. John said, "I don't know how 2 answer that." No 1 says that in media these days. They always have some kind of prefab answer. Really good honest upfront answers. I miss that. It's hard to liaten to sports talk radio with all those fucking ads.
I like that one day later, WMCA had already managed to lose its recording of Reggie's third homer.
Found at 1:03:15.
Luv how he wanted to strangle whoever lost it
As soon as he opens his mouth he's wrong. There was no World Series in 1904. It hadn't been continuously played since 1903.
There was no World Series in 1904 that year because the Giants thought it was beneath them to play a team from what they thought was an inferior league. Imagine that!
Which is before 1904? Although you are right about the lack of a WS that year.
The day before the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash
they were playing greenville south carolina this day
So, Susan is Billy coming back as Yankee manager next season? John! Billy Martin is in George Steinbrenner’s Boox !!!!
I wonder what Lasorda thought of Jackson's performance.
The same as he thought of Dave Kingman's, I imagine.
Lasorda's been interviewed a LOT re: that.
could he "name drop" any more in the first 7 minutes?
Not true! Marv Albert was manning Sports Line on WNBC when he wasn't doing Knicks/Rangers with substitutes like Sal Marciano, Spencer Ross and later Dave Sims.
And later, Mike Breen would be a substitute host for Dave Sims!
Im listening to this and listening to John, on the FAN, from a game in 2009, and he sounds exactly the same, THIRTY-TWO years apart! I also called him, as a teenager, in December 74, the day after Ralph Baker's interception return against the Bills & OJ. I hope to call him again this year, when he does a WFAN show, for two calls separated by 45 years. That has to be a Guinness record for most years between talk radio calls.
This kind of snickering condescension is what drives me nuts about Sterling.
That probably wasn't the first time that he said something like that. But he should have known better than to say something of that nature without having the facts to back him up.