John Sterling Net Worth: Biography Update, Wife, Age, Career, Personal Life, Death

John Sterling (born John Sloss; July 4, 1938 – May 4, 2026) was an American sportscaster. He was best known as the radio play-by-play announcer for the New York Yankees from 1989 to 2024. Sterling called 5,060 Yankees games in a row between 1989 and 2019.

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Personal Information

Career

Career Highlights & Awards

Age

John Sloss was born on July 4, 1938, in New York City, U.S.

Biography

Sterling was born John Sloss in New York City on July 4, 1938. He grew up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side as the son of advertising executive Carl H. T. Sloss and was Jewish. He briefly attended Moravian College, Boston University, and the Columbia University School of General Studies. He left school to start his radio career at a small station in Wellsville, New York.

Career

After changing his name to Sterling, he started his broadcasting career in Baltimore. He was the play-by-play announcer for the Baltimore Bullets of the NBA during the 1970–71 season. He also called Morgan State University football games from 1971 to 1978.

Sterling began working in New York radio as a talk show host with WMCA in 1971. He later became the radio voice for the New York Raiders of the World Hockey Association, the New York Stars of the World Football League, the New York Islanders of the NHL (with Bob Lawrence), and the New York/New Jersey Nets of the ABA and NBA (mainly with Mike DeTomasso). He also worked with the Yankees as a pre-game host on WMCA and WINS radio and co-hosted cable segments with Mel Allen.

Between 1975 and 1980, Sterling called Nets and Islanders games for WMCA, WVNJ, WOR-TV, and SportsChannel New York. He kept hosting his WMCA talk show until 1978. After leaving New York, he spent nine years in Atlanta, where he hosted a sports call-in show on WSB radio and covered the Atlanta Braves (1982–1987) and Atlanta Hawks (1981–1989) for Turner Sports.

Personal Life and Death

Sterling lived in Edgewater, New Jersey, after previously living in Teaneck. He divorced his wife Jennifer in 2008 after 12 years of marriage and had four children, including triplets born in 2000. In January 2015, he was among the residents displaced when a fire destroyed the Avalon at Edgewater complex.

In August 2020, Sterling was hospitalized for a blood infection.

On September 1, 2021, after calling a Yankees game remotely from Yankee Stadium, Sterling was stranded in his car about a mile from his Edgewater home because of flooding from Hurricane Ida. Rickie Ricardo, the Yankees’ Spanish-language broadcaster and also an Edgewater resident, was driving home and rescued Sterling.

On June 10, 2023, while broadcasting a Yankees game against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium, Sterling was hit in the head by a foul ball from Justin Turner. He kept broadcasting and was back in the booth the next night.

In February 2026, Sterling shared that he had a heart attack in January.

Sterling died of heart failure at a hospital in Englewood, New Jersey, on May 4, 2026, at age 87.

Awards and honors

Sterling won 12 Sports Emmy Awards in his career, including two for Yankeeography.

In 2024 and 2025, Sterling was a finalist for the Ford C. Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In April 2025, he received the Pride of the Yankees award at the team’s annual Welcome Home dinner.