The first week of Dave Sims “Amazing” in Yankees Radio Booth: “Welcome to Home Run Derby”

No. He was no longer in Seattle.

Imagine you are Dave SimsThe new New York Yankees radio entry. It is last Thursday – opening day – and your heart is beating.

It is your first day at the work of a lifetime. You are the proud successor of the legendary John Sterling. You thought about this day, this game, for months. Prepare your notes. Prepare to provide a message of appreciation and anticipation. You have three hours of baseball in front of you to express your thoughts in words. Then …

The races at home start flying through the New York sky. One after the other after the other …

Starting from The first Yankee to come to the plate since you settled in this stand – Austin Wells … leading out of the season with a race at home … and preparing the stage for a Bar of 15 OMER Before you passed your first weekend in the concert.

So Dave, since then whatever happens with the Yankees You did he show up?

“Naaah,” Sims and Doug Glanville told me and The new episode of our Starkville podcast. “I took a tour of the underground at the baseball field – and then … the next thing you know, it was:” Hi, all and welcome to home run derby. “”

No issuer has ever started his career with a new team like that. This is just a fact. Fifteen runs at home in your first series on the stand? We said the new Yankees voice was Not In Seattle more?

He had spent 18 big seasons there, and had loved every minute. But he is a type of boy from the East Coast, a former sports writer and conductor of Talk Show in New York, and a man who has spent the last 50 years to live in New York when he did not call baseball games in Seattle. So when Sims woke up before dawn on the opening day, his adrenaline was already scrolling.

He was noting notes at 6 in the morning, pedaling on the Peloton before 8 in the morning, riding the subway towards the stadium in the middle of the morning. And then his day really became a blur. The handshakes. Congratulations. Recovery. Clubhouse meetings. And with that first shot, he hit him.

“I’m exhausted – at 2:45,” said Sims. “And then … Wells goes deep. I mean, are you kidding? Come on. Is one of those affairs in which I went: this is really happening. Wow. I want to say, a minute of the regular season? Voice of the Yankees? Is it incredible.”

Dave Sims had a rapid start for his Yankees transmission mandate. (Mat Hayward / Getty Images For The Players Alliance)

There are many interesting things in calling the baseball matches in Seattle. Turn on all your calls to the signature house would not be one of these. In the 18 seasons Sims spent in Seattle, the Yankees hit over 800 more runs at home than the Mariners-Ohs, and also conquered them in the post-installation, with a count of 138-4.

The Mariners took three weeks to hit 15 runs at home last season. Yankees took three games to hit 15 this season. Could have been a more powerful reminder that not all the baseball transmission works are done the same?

“I love those guys,” said everyone in Seattle. “But, good pain, nothing is confronted. I had two incredible moments there – that Cal Raleigh Home Run To send us to the playoffs in ’22 e The Félix Hernández (perfect game) in ’12. Those were monumental. But on this phase? In this city? Where do I live? They are the New York Yankees, franchise franchise. “

If this opportunity had never introduced itself, Sims would have been still a happy man, leading a idyllic life. He would become a face (and the voice) of Seattle baseball. He had won two Emmy … and three Washington Sportscastter of the Year prizes. He appeared on a vote Ford C. Frick as a candidate for the wing of the broadcasters of the Hall of Fame of the baseball.

It was a good race. And those Washingtonians were sad to see him go. But when the Yankees offer you a place in one of the most sanctified radio cabins in America, you don’t say: “Yes, but it is difficult to leave the salmon of the cedar table”.

“I was talking to my wife,” said Sims. “To be in the same – I will not say the same phrase or paragraph – but at least perhaps the same page as Mel Allen and Red Barber and Bill White and Phil Rizzuto and Frank Messer, I think that at the end of the season he will really make me jump in the air. But at this moment, I am so focused on only work, having fun and doing it in the right way.”

However, as “Nerd transmitted” self-professionalist, Sims does not need media guide to know who preceded it in that Yankees radio cabin.

“Growing up to Philly … I knew, (a) World Series Time, it was always Mel Allen. When I moved to New York and I was at the Daily News, I knew he was a scooter (Rizzuto) and Bill White and Frank Messer. Bobby Mercer (I was aware. It’s nice to have my name next to them, I tell you.”

And then there is Sterling, the man who called Yankees Games for 36 seasons, in his distinctive way. But just as Sims did not enter the Dave Niehaus shoes in Seattle and pulled out the rye bread, the age of the explosions of “Judge-Insa” in the Bronx is also over.

In the transmissions sector, there is an act of balance between honoring those who came in front of you but still yourself. Sims not only realizes that the walk on the edge of the thread in a row, but also understands what it means to be successful in a legend.

“Well, I’m honored,” he said. “I have known John since 1977. It was the voice of the networks. I was covering the nets with the Daily News. We do not go out, but professionally, we met every year – a couple or three times a year. And certainly, his work spoke for himself. The only thing I can do is enter and (be myself).

“John said,” I want to do my act. “He did his way.

But even Glickman could not prepare it to call the back-to-back murders in the first three shots of a game … or 15 races at home in a series … or explaining what the hell to Bathar Bat It is and what could mean for sport.

Sims, 72 years old, spoke of all this to Starkville, in addition as it was almost hired by the Yankees over a decade ago – and much more. But he also put in words exactly how special it is to find you to start the work of your dreams … half a century in your career.

“I Wasn’T Meant to be a Mathematician,” Sims Said, “OR A Chemist Working in A mortuary or Anything like that. I’ve Been Around Sports All My Life. I Tell Guys I Saw Wilt Chamberlain Like Five, Six Times a Year – Live. I Saw Jim Brown Every Year – Live at (Philadelphia’s) Franklin Field – For About Five, Six Years.

“I love this stuff,” said Sims. “And to be able to call these last 18 years, and now with the Yankees? I want to say, there is a great song to Broadway …” If my friends could see me now. “I have some guys to North Philly;

You can find the entire conversation with Sims, as well as funny stolen basic curiosities and a strange but real look at the Yankees’ Game nine OMER last Saturday Here.

(Top photo of Austin Wells: Mike Stobe / Getty Images)