Suzyn Waldman (born September 7, 1946) is an American sportscaster and former musical theater actress. Since the 2005 season, she has been the

color commentator A color commentator or expert commentator is a sports commentator who assists the main (play-by-play) commentator, typically by filling in when play is not in progress. The person may also be referred to as a summariser (outside North America) ...

for

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Am ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

, working with John Sterling,

Justin Shackil Justin V. Shackil (born February 16, 1987) is an American sportscaster for the YES Network and WFAN. From April through October 2024, he was the primary radio announcer for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball. Early life Shackil is f ...

and

Dave Sims David Sims (born February 14, 1953) is an American sportscaster. He is the radio play-by-play commentator for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (MLB). He was previously the television play-by play commentator for MLB's Seattle Marine ...

on radio broadcasts, first for WCBS-AM and currently for

WFAN WFAN may refer to: * WFAN (AM) WFAN (660 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to New York, New York, with a sports radio format, branded "Sports Radio 66 AM and 101.9 FM" or "The Fan". Owned by Audacy, Inc., the station serves the New Y ...

in New York City.

Early life and career

Waldman was born in

Newton, Massachusetts Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is located roughly west of Downtown Boston, and comprises a patchwork of thirteen villages. The city borders Boston to the northeast and southeast (via the neighborhoods of ...

, the daughter of Jeanne and Philip Waldman. She loved baseball from childhood; she recalls going to a game with her grandfather when she was three and a half years old. She also has joked that she chose

Simmons College Institutions of learning called Simmons College or Simmons University include: * Simmons University Simmons University (previously Simmons College) is a private university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1899 by ...

because it was near Fenway Park. She graduated from Simmons with a degree in economics. Prior to her broadcasting career, Waldman worked as an actress and singer in musical theater. Her most notable role was as Dulcinea in ''

Man of La Mancha ''Man of La Mancha'' is a 1965 musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, music by Mitch Leigh, and lyrics by Joe Darion. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay '' I, Don Quixote'', which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervan ...

.'' Her rendition of "There Used To Be a Ballpark" appeared on historian

David Pietrusza David Pietrusza is an American author and historian, and is considered an expert on US Politics in the 1920s. He has written a number of books, including ''Roosevelt Sweeps Nation: FDR's 1936 Landslide and the Triumph of the Liberal Ideal,'' w ...

's 1995 WMHT-TV documentary ''Local Heroes: Baseball on Capital Region Diamonds.'' She has performed the

National Anthem A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation. The majority of national anthems are marches or hymns in style. American, Central Asian, and European ...

at a number of Yankee home games, most recently in April 2021, as well as before Game 7 of the

1986 American League Championship Series The 1986 American League Championship Series was a best-of-seven semifinal series in Major League Baseball's 1986 postseason between the Boston Red Sox and the California Angels for the right to advance to the 1986 World Series to face the win ...

at Fenway Park.

Broadcasting career

Waldman is considered a pioneer in the male-dominated field of sports broadcasting. In the mid-1990s, she was a

play-by-play In Broadcasting of sports events, sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as a sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real time (media), real-time live commentary of a game or event, traditionally delivered in the present t ...

announcer for the Yankees' local TV broadcasts on

WPIX WPIX (channel 11) is a television station in New York City, serving as the ''de facto'' flagship of The CW Television Network. Owned by Mission Broadcasting, the station is operated by CW majority owner Nexstar Media Group under a local market ...

, which made her the second woman to serve in that capacity on TV for a major league team, after Gayle Gardner in 1993. In 2005, she was hired to do color commentary for Yankees baseball on WCBS Radio, partnering with John Sterling. According to the Yankees, Waldman was major league baseball's first full-time female color commentator. Waldman has worked in sports reporting for more than 30 years. She was a reporter for the

YES Network The Yankee Entertainment and Sports Network (YES) is an American pay television regional sports network owned by Yankee Global Enterprises (the largest shareholder with 26%), Main Street Sports Group (which owns 20%), Amazon (which owns 15% ...

's Yankees pre- and post-game shows, and also appeared on New York sports radio station

. Her voice—on a live sports update—was the first heard on WFAN when it premiered on 1050 AM at 3:00 PM on July 1, 1987 (it moved to 660 AM a year later). At WFAN, she covered both the Yankees and the

New York Knicks The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks compete in the Na ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

teams and co-hosted the daily mid-day sports talk show. Following the 2013 season, the Yankees moved their radio rights from WCBS to

, and announced that Waldman and John Sterling would return for their tenth year together in the broadcast booth. She signed a two-year contract extension in February 2016 that ran through the 2017 season. On December 16, 2017, Waldman signed a contract through the 2018 season. She is currently under contract through the 2025 season. From June 29–30, 2019, Waldman called the first MLB games played in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, when the Yankees played the Red Sox in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. On September 9, 2023, Waldman hosted a "Question-and-Answer" event with the 1998 Yankees at the team's annual Old Timers' Day, which was held in lieu of the traditional exhibition game. In 2025, Waldman began calling games with

following Sterling’s retirement. Her long association with the Yankees has earned her the nickname "Ma Pinstripe" from ''

New York Daily News The ''Daily News'' is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson in New York City as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Tabloid (newspaper format ...

'' writer Bob Raissman.

George Bell incident

At the start of the

1987 Major League Baseball season The 1987 Major League Baseball season ended with the American League Champion Minnesota Twins winning the World Series over the National League Champion St. Louis Cardinals, four games to three, as all seven games were won by the home team. I ...

Toronto Blue Jays The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East Division. Since 1989, the team has p ...

outfielder An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to catch ...

George Bell was not talking to the New York media, thinking they had cost him the

Most Valuable Player In team sports, a most valuable player (MVP) award is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particular competition, or ...

award the year earlier. He broke his silence after a win at

Yankee Stadium Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx in New York City. It is the home field of Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees and New York City FC of Major League Soccer. The stadium opened in April 2009, replacing the Yankee S ...

, and the regular beat writers hurriedly gathered around his locker. New on the beat (women had just recently been allowed access to the locker room), Waldman joined the group; Bell immediately started screaming at her in Spanish and English. "There was a deathly silence. I think the other writers were shocked, but I also think they still resented me more than a bit, and they certainly didn't want to lose this interview," she recalled on a radio show. "At the time, I was a little less tough than I am now. Tears welled up in my eyes and I said I better get out of there." As she rushed to leave, Bell's teammate

Jesse Barfield Jesse Lee Barfield (born October 29, 1959) is an American former professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as a right fielder from 1981 to 1992 for the Toronto Blue Jays and the New York Yankees. A two-time Gol ...

called out to her: "Suzyn, I went three for four today. Don’t you want to ask me any questions?" Waldman and Barfield, now a baseball announcer himself, became friends and have remained close since then.

Yogi BerraGeorge Steinbrenner feud

In 1985, Yankees owner

George Steinbrenner George Michael Steinbrenner III (July 4, 1930July 13, 2010) was an American businessman who was the principal owner and managing partner of Major League Baseball's New York Yankees from 1973 until his death in 2010. He was the longest-serving own ...

sent his

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

Clyde King Clyde Edward King (May 23, 1924 – November 2, 2010) was an American pitcher, coach, manager, general manager and front office executive in Major League Baseball. King's career in baseball spanned 67 years, including 35 full years with the Ne ...

, to fire manager

Yogi Berra Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra (born Lorenzo Pietro Berra; May 12, 1925 – September 22, 2015) was an American professional baseball catcher who later took on the roles of Manager (baseball), manager and Coach (baseball), coach. He played 19 seas ...

. This greatly angered Berra because in his previous firings, the team owner had personally delivered the news. Yogi vowed not to visit

and not to participate in any Yankee function as long as George Steinbrenner was the owner of the Yankees. In 1999, Suzyn Waldman helped arrange a meeting between the two men that brought an end to the 14-year feud. Yogi returned on Opening Day of the 1999 season, a day also designated as "Joe DiMaggio Day."

Awards and honors

Waldman received an honorary Doctor of Journalism from Simmons University in May 2021. She was selected for induction into the Radio Hall of Fame on July 25, 2022.

Personal life

In 1996, Waldman was diagnosed with

breast cancer Breast cancer is a cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a Breast lump, lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, Milk-rejection sign, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipp ...

. She sued Mount Sinai Hospital and two of its

pathologists A list of people notable in the field of pathology. A * John Abercrombie, Scottish physician, neuropathologist and philosopher. * Maude Abbott (1869–1940), Canadian pathologist, one of the earliest women graduated in medicine, expert in c ...

for misdiagnosing her as cancer-free, eventually winning over $2 million in damages from the case. While her

chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated chemo, sometimes CTX and CTx) is the type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (list of chemotherapeutic agents, chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) in a standard chemotherapy re ...

regimen limited (and eventually ended) her day-to-day role of broadcasting Yankees games on TV, she continued in her role at WFAN throughout her illness. Her cancer has been in remission for several years. Waldman is a resident of

Croton-on-Hudson Croton-on-Hudson ( ) is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 8,327 at the 2020 United States census over 8,070 at the 2010 census. It is located in the town of Cortlandt as part of New York City's northern ...

Westchester County, New York Westchester County is a County (United States), county located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, bordering the Long Island Sound and the Byram River to its east and the Hudson River on its west. The c ...

References

Notes Further reading ::Articles * Waldman, Suzyn (March 24, 1985
"Lady at the Bat: Suzyn Waldman Swings Into Her Fantasy at Fantasy Camp"
''New York Daily News''. * Raissman, Bob (March 22, 1996)
"No Quit in FAN's Waldman"
''New York Daily News''. * Jeng, Christina (20 November 2005)
"Suffern benefit hits home run"
''The Journal News''. * Kramer, Peter D. (November 30, 2006). "And singing cleanup ... Suzyn Waldman". ''The Journal News''. pp
35
an
36
* Albanese, Laura (April 2, 2019)
"It's been a difficult road filled with roadblocks for pioneering Yankees broadcaster Suzyn Waldman"
''The La Crosse Tribune''. ::Books * Jones, Charlie; Doren, Kim (2003). ''Heaven Can Wait: Surviving Cancer''. Santa Ana, CA: Seven Locks Press. . pp
115116 and 117
* Grodin, Charles (2007). ''If I Only Knew Then: Learning From Our Mistakes''. New York: Springboard Press. . pp
36-37

External links

New York Yankees biography

Suzyn's reaction to the Roger Clemens signing
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Waldman, Suzyn Major League Baseball broadcasters American musical theatre actresses NBA broadcasters New York Yankees announcers Actresses from Newton, Massachusetts American radio sports announcers American television sports announcers Living people Women baseball announcers YES Network Simmons University alumni New York Knicks announcers New York Giants announcers People from Croton-on-Hudson, New York 21st-century American women 1946 births Jewish American baseball people Jewish American sports announcers