“You guys dragged that out of me, how dare you!” If Dave Sims awoke to find his phone flooded with calls about the New York Yankees radio booth, he can blame WFAN caller Dr. Joe.
Less than a month into the Major League Baseball season, John Sterling made the startling revelation that he was retiring from the New York Yankees radio booth after 36 years, bringing an end to a storied broadcasting career spanning over six decades. The Yankees and WFAN have used a revolving cast of broadcasters, led by Justin Shackil and Emmanuel Berbari, to replace Sterling’s immediate vacancy. Other possibilities considered as potential long-term successors include Ryan Ruocco, Brendan Burke, and Ricki Ricardo.
On Friday morning, however, WFAN caller “Dr. Joe” joined Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti on their morning show and, somewhat unwillingly, proposed long-time Seattle Mariners TV broadcaster Dave Sims as a favorite to be the Yankees radio voice. To borrow an overused sports media term, there’s a lot to unpack here. The first question might be, “Who is Dr. Joe?”
Making his second call to WFAN’s morning broadcast, Dr. Joe claimed to be close to the Yankees radio booth and that the name Dave Sims had been mentioned to him. As Esiason and Giannotti pressed Dr. Joe for additional information, the caller revealed that 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 nightly host Keith McPherson later tempered Dr. Joe’s allegation, telling Boomer and Gio that he is unaware of any doctors in the Yankees radio booth. McPherson was on the radio broadcast for a Yankees game earlier this season.
Regardless of how well Dr. Joe knows Suzyn Waldman or anyone else in the Yankees radio booth, he demonstrated that callers may still contribute to a radio show.
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