When the brand new Yankees radio play-by-play voice was getting ready for spring coaching video games, he wasn’t nervous in any respect. Keep in mind, this isn’t Dave Sims’ first radio rodeo.
Now that the 2025 baseball season is underway, the broadcasting veteran is as snug because the outdated Kangol hat he likes to put on.
However you’re changing an iconic voice in John Sterling who helmed the mic for 36 years. How will you ever do this?
Dave Sims chats with Yankees supervisor Aaron Boone (l.) earlier than a recreation towards the Brewers at Yankee Stadium final month.
“Everyone asks me that,” says Sims from his residence in Manhattan. “Was I supposed to roll over and get all queasy, come on.”
He has now changed two broadcasting legends. Dave Niehaus of the Seattle Mariners was the primary.
“If I was like 25 or 30, it’ll be a lot different,” Sims says. “This is my fourth decade of doing play-by-play.”
He had the massive names on his present like Giants basic supervisor George Younger, broadcaster Merlin Olsen, ex-Yankee Sparky Lyle, future Corridor of Famer Rod Carew and faculty soccer star Brian Bosworth.
The present aired Monday-Friday from 7:30 p.m. to midnight and his producer was the longer term voice of the Knicks, Mike Breen, a 2021 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Corridor of Fame.
That led to a myriad of jobs, doing NFL soccer and the NCAA Males’s Basketball Event on Westwood One Radio from 1998-2015.
Faculty basketball announcer Dave Sims on air earlier than a university basketball recreation between the Marquette Golden Eagles and the Seton Corridor Pirates on the Prudential Middle on January 26, 2022 in Newark, New Jersey. (Photograph by Mitchell Layton/Getty Photographs)
There was additionally his stint because the weekend sports activities anchor on WCBS-TV (1995-2007).
However baseball is the itch he needed to scratch.
When Sims labored for the Mariners for 18 years, he did all of it. He’s a throwback and very like the Mets’ beloved broadcast trio of Bob Murphy, Lindsey Nelson and Ralph Kiner, Sims did TV and radio.
“[Dave Niehaus] opened the TV and did the first three innings,” says Sims. “I would hand it over to Rick Rizzs [radio] and I would do color for three innings. Top four, we’d switch.”
After Niehaus’ loss of life in 2018, Sims turned the person. A lot in order that he was named the Nationwide Sports activities Media Affiliation’s Washington Sportscaster of the 12 months 3 times.
He has paid his dues.
“First of all, he is a top-notch broadcaster,” says his long-time good friend, and now companion on the WFAN’s Yankees radio broadcasts, Suzyn Waldman. “Second, we see the identical recreation. We grew up the identical approach, loving baseball in a sure approach. We’re each emotional.
“We both see people on the field as opposed to being bogged down by stats. We’ve known each other so long. It’s going to be terrific.”
Being the radio voice of the Yankees comes with excessive expectations yearly and 2025 can be no totally different.
GM Brian Cashman reloaded the group that got here up brief in final yr’s World Collection with offseason acquisitions like starter Max Fried, nearer Devin Williams, first baseman Paul Goldschmidt and outfielder Cody Bellinger.
Not a foul haul contemplating the group misplaced celebrity Juan Soto to the crosstown rival Mets.
“Their Plan A and Plan B was just so successful,” says Sims. “I’m telling you that that was fantastic. Nobody expected that. Credit Cash and Omar [Minaya] and the front office staff. This is fabulous work.”
A graduate of Bethany Faculty in W. Va., with a level in mass communications, Sims performed soccer and baseball for the Division III faculty. He was a catcher for the Bisons.
“Oh yeah,” he says. “I wasn’t thinking along those lines [yet], but I knew I wanted to get into sports anchoring, and I wanted to do play-by-play. I was able to check all those boxes.”
Certainly.
Whereas Sims is the radio voice of the Bronx Bombers, he’s had iconic voices advising him.
“[Long-time Reds announcer] Marty Brennaman once told me, ‘God damn it, David, just call it,’” says Sims. “I always called him Coach. ‘Alright Coach. I was thinking along those lines.’”
“You can’t come to baseball late,” says Waldman who has coated sports activities in New York for nearly 40 years and has been the Yankees radio coloration analyst since 2005. In reality, Waldman and Sims all the time texted one another throughout their respective video games with the Yankees and Mariners, although miles away, to see what was occurring at their video games.
“You have to be embedded and both of us were little children when we both started loving baseball,” she says. “We each are ingrained within the tales and the historical past. I’m scared to loss of life that that’s going be misplaced with the way in which baseball is regarded upon now.
“Don’t neglect, that is radio. [Listeners] can’t see it. You possibly can’t take it as a right that everyone is aware of all the things.
“It’s important that you are the voice.”
One other radio voice of the Yankees, since 2014, is Rickie Ricardo, the group’s Spanish language broadcaster. It got here all the way down to him or Sims changing Sterling and there’s no animosity from Ricardo as a result of, “Dave’s a category act.
“What does he not bring to the booth?” asks Ricardo. “He brings the knowledge of figuring out what as we speak’s Main League Baseball is all about. It is a very totally different recreation to name because it was within the ’80s, ’90s and even the 2000s. He understands the intricacies of the alternative ways baseball is checked out as we speak and he’s developed.
“I told people if I don’t get it because Dave does,” says Ricardo, who additionally does the Spanish language broadcasts for the Philadelphia Eagles, “I’ve got no complaints.”
Sims additionally is aware of the distinction between making a name on TV versus radio.
“On TV, call it and get the hell out of the way,” he says. “On radio, give it a few seconds, especially if it’s a big crowd reaction. Because nothing beats that and then you bring your partner, in this case, Suzyn, back in and she can react to it.”
Like all baseball followers, there are voices you grew up with and Sims is not any totally different.
“My list of broadcast heroes goes back. There was “The Game of The Week” with Curt Gowdy and Tony Kubek,” says Sims. “In Philly, it was Invoice Campbell, Byrum Saam, then Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn.
“I came to New York and it’s Bill White, Kenny Singleton, Lindsey Nelson, Ray Scott. You know … ‘Starr … Dowler … Touchdown!’”
Sims lets out amusing for all of the outdated timers. He even discovered from legendary New York broadcaster Marty Glickman.
“He had such a distinctive voice, and he mentored me,” says Sims with delight.
Sims additionally has a preferred rising facet gig.
Since July, and taping each Monday, Sims and his sons Jarett (41) and Jordan (37) put out the “Hey Now! Podcast.”
They’ve had typical A-Checklist friends together with Harold Reynolds (the primary visitor), Ken Griffey Jr., Curtis Granderson, Ken Singleton, Bob Costas, AL Supervisor of the 12 months Stephen Vogt of the Guardians and comedians Invoice Burr and Jeff Garlin.
There may be additionally a little bit of a renaissance man in Sims. When on the highway in Chicago as an example, he expands his data utilizing his time correctly.
“I got to see [painter] Georgia O’Keeffe’s exhibit and checked out [blues icon] Buddy Guy’s place,” he says, “and I’ve bought to get to studying exterior of sports activities.
“I want to read the Robert Moses book, “The Power Broker,” and see what he did to New York.”
For all those that assume broadcasting is of their future, right here’s some well timed Sims recommendation.
“Be there early, stay late, keep your ears open and be a good person,” says Sims. “Go down and work together with the gamers within the clubhouse and the batting cage.
“You’re not going to get everybody every day, but if you get two, three, four guys, get a couple of nuggets, work them into your broadcast. That is so key.”
Some issues gained’t change for Sims like sporting his signature hat within the sales space.
“Absolutely,” he says. “When it’s summertime, I gotta represent and wear my Panamas.”
Then there’s the difficulty of a catchphrase. A number of the biggest broadcasters in New York have had basic catchphrases.
Marty Glickman had his “Good like Nedick’s!” (look it up).
Mel Allen: “How a-bout that!”
Marv Albert: “Yes!”
Mike Breen: “Bang!”
Generally, Breen offers you a memorable double “Bang!” like when then-Knick Donte DiVincenzo hit a game-winning three again in March of final yr.
Sims’ signature catch phrase has been, “Hey Now!”
How will it play in New York?
“I’m not going to beat it to death,” Sims says with amusing noting he’d save a double “Hey Now!” for a extremely necessary second. Not a backside of the ninth win, or a division or pennant clincher … assume successful World Collection championship No. 28.
That euphoria would possibly benefit the uncommon triple “Hey Now!”
