Michael Kay broke down on the air as he opened up about the death of his former radio partner John Sterling on Monday.
Sterling, who was 87, had open-heart surgery after suffering “so many heart attacks that it would’ve killed most people,” Kay explained on his ESPN NY Radio show. And while Sterling got through the surgery well, he was bed-ridden for so long that he lost the ability to walk.
Sterling was “really pushing” his rehab because his oldest daughter, Abigail, is getting married this summer.
“Michael, I have to walk her down the aisle,” Sterling said, according to Kay, who grew audibily emotional before taking a long pause.
“And that’s why he was hanging on. But he had trouble about a week ago, heart failure, and he finally succumbed today. But he’ll be walking her down as he looks down on his family.
“The one thing he wanted to do, he was unable to make it.”
Kay tried to push through the sadness, wanting to celebrate the life of his friend, a lifelong Yankees fan whose job as voice of the team “meant the world to him.”
The two were radio partners from 1992-2001 on ABC, and Kay says the Sterling fans heard on the radio was who he was in his everyday life.
“John Sterling, to me, was one of a kind,” Kay said. “I have never, ever, ever in my life met anyone like him, and I know as long as I live I’ll never meet anyone like him.”
Sterling said on WFAN in February that he had a heart attack the previous month and said his children were helping him.
“It’s hard to talk about him in the past tense,” Kay said of Sterling, “because I’ve never met a man who was more full of life.”
