Michael Kay honored the late John Sterling on Monday night by replicating his well-known home run call for Aaron Judge in the bottom of the first inning.
Sterling, the longtime Yankees broadcaster, died Monday at 87 years old.
Kay paid homage to his friend and former broadcast partner — having called games on the radio with Sterling from 1992-2001 on 770 AM WABC — when Judge hit a two-run blast to right center field to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead over the Orioles.
“It is high! It is far! It is gone!” Kay belted, using the same home run call that Sterling made famous while calling Yankee games. “Aaron Judge! A Judgian blast! Here comes the Judge!”
All were phrases that Sterling used to call an Aaron Judge home run.
Sterling was synonymous with Yankee baseball, calling games on the radio for 36 years.
His death led to tributes from across the baseball world, and Kay became emotional during his radio show on ESPN New York earlier Monday in recalling Sterling’s reasoning for making such a big push to walk again.
Kay said that Sterling had been bedridden and lost the ability to walk after open-heart surgery following “so many heart attacks that it would’ve killed most people.”
The Yankees TV voice said that Sterling had been “really pushing” his rehab in order to walk his oldest daughter down the aisle when she gets married over the summer.
“’Michael, I have to walk her down the aisle’,” Kay recalled him saying to him, having to pause as he became emotional. “And that’s why he was hanging on. But he had trouble about a week ago, heart failure, and he finally succumbed today. But he’ll be walking her down as he looks down on his family.
“The one thing he wanted to do, he was unable to make it.”
Sterling’s presence was felt around Yankee Stadium quite a bit on Monday as the Yankees battled the Orioles.
The players wore hats with “JS” written on the back of them, and prior to the game, a moment of silence was held as Kay and Suzyn Waldman — Sterling’s broadcast partner — laid flowers at home plate.
Prior to the game, Judge told reporters that “fans all around the country are going to remember his voice” when he was asked about Sterling.
“I’m just going to remember he brought that New York theatre to the ballpark is the best way to describe it,” Judge said.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
