- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by Kean University.

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- This is One-On-One.

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- A quartet is already a jawn, it’s just The New Jawn.

- January 6th was not some sort of violent, crazy outlier.

- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

- I mean what other country sends comedians over to embedded military to make them feel better.

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_ It’s not all about memorizing and getting information, it’s what you do with that information.

- (slowly) Start talking right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) - All right, Yankee fans, here we go.

It is time for a new voice of the New York Yankees on radio on WFAN.

And we are honored to have the Dave Sims, radio voice of the New York Yankees on WFAN, play by play announcer, and also with his new "Hey Now!

", that's his catchphrase, podcast.

Dave, first of all, it's an honor to have you with us, my friend.

- Steve, good to see you again, thank you very much, appreciate it.

- Good to see you.

Hey, you're doing the podcast with your son?

- Yes, sir, with both sons, Jared and Jordan, and we've been on since July and it's gone pretty well.

- How old are they?

- Oh, they're grown men.

They're 41 and 37.

And we've had media guys, oh, we've had Costas and Nance and we've had, let's say Ken Griffey Jr., Curtis Granderson, Bill Burr, the comedian, Jeff Garland, Robert Wall, Dusty Baker, Tony Dungy.

We've had a nice group.

We have Aaron Boone coming up in about a week, two weeks.

So we're pretty excited about the endeavor and onward and upward, as they say.

- When it was announced, and go on our website, steveadubato.org.

The entire, we did an entire Yankee week, we did in cooperation.

It was with co-anchored our colleague, friend and boss, the leader of the WNET Group, Neal Shapiro, who is a hardcore Yankee fan.

I am as well.

We went all out all week, and right after we did that, it was announced that Dave was gonna be the voice of the Yankees.

Dave, let me ask you, not just for Yankee, hardcore Yankee fans, and I should say our good friend Scarlyn, who is behind the camera, is a Met fan, but he's also a fan of yours.

- Well, I appreciate that, thank you.

- But here's the deal.

I can't imagine what you were feeling and thinking when you got that call.

You've been in the business for a couple years.

- Yeah, for a minute.

No question about it.

You know, I had expressed interest back in May, and we went back and forth with this over the years, and then when it finally came through, I just remember the next day I woke up and I told my wife, asked my wife Abby.

I said, "That really happened, didn't it?"

"Oh, yeah, it happened.

And you are the new radio voice of the Yankees."

It's very exciting.

It's one of the great brands, not only in the country, but in the world.

And if you're a New York Yankee fan, you know, with all the pendants and all the World Series and all the Hall of Famers, just so much glamour that goes with it, the panache and just status.

It's, you know, I've had a couple of guys who were in broadcasting and said, "Hey, now, welcome to the big leagues."

- Now listen, for those of us who have known and been friends and colleagues of Dave Sims, we know, in fact, I was watching the game the other day.

You were doing a Big East game.

Was it for the Fox folks?

- Yeah.

- You do... Do this for us, we'll come back to the Yankees in a minute.

I've been fascinated by the changes going on in college sports, particularly the basketball side.

I've said this many times, I'm a Seton Hall Pirate fan.

Things aren't going well right now, but, you know, let me ask you, as not just a great broadcaster of college basketball, but an observer and analyst who understands it better than most, to what degree, Dave, are the changes, or do the changes, the national name, image and likeness, NIL, the portal, et cetera, transfer portal.

How much has that changed, if at all, your work as a broadcaster?

- As in, well, I gotta get used to writing that.

He's with his fourth team in the last four years, he's on his third team in the last four years.

I get a lot of that, which is freaking amazing.

The other thing too, when I talk to coaches and other people around the business, and talked to some ADs and everything.

You know, the fear is it's not sustainable.

And, you know, certain schools are gonna have a war chest that is maybe not like the LA Dodgers or the Yankees, but it's gonna be substantial.

And the have-nots are gonna be in big time trouble.

And on the football side, forget about it.

I mean, it's probably gonna come down to be a whole nother division of 20, 30 teams who are, you know, big boy players.

And I know from talking to John Calipari, he was concerned about something and he was having, he was dining with one of the Walmart heirs, and the guy said, "Hey, you got me, you got Jerry Jones.

Pass the bread, shut up."

So, but those kinds of guys who have that kind of set up, they're in the high cotton.

Everybody else, you know, good luck.

So you're concerned about whether this thing's gonna be sustainable moving forward.

- Let me ask you this, Dave, again, you've been, describe how you entered the business of broadcasting.

Why, when, and then we'll talk more about the changes.

Go ahead.

- Absolutley.

Yeah I knew going back in high school for sure I wanted to get in broadcasting.

- Where'd you grow up?

- Well, I grew up in Philly.

I was gonna go to Temple, but I wanted to get out.

I wanted, I figured I was gonna live and die in Philly, but I wanted to get an at least experience for a little bit at school out of town.

So I went to little Bethany College.

I figured I'd stay for a year, come back, four years later, I graduate.

Got a couple of internships, the Philadelphia Inquirer, life changing, got 'em as a sophomore and as a junior, which was unheard of.

And I parlayed that into working with the Inquirer, when I graduated, and then I got an offer from the New York Daily News, came up, the first Black sports writer there, first Black sports writer at the Inquirer, and learned a lot.

Hey, kid, you know anything about soccer?

Guess what you're gonna learn.

It threw me into deep end, swim out.

So, seven, you know, you make a lot of contacts as you know in, you know, the New York metropolitan area leads to some TV, and I always had my eye on play by play.

Well, when I saw you, when we first met, I was doing a lot of anchoring.

And I thoroughly enjoyed that, filled in at Channel 4 and then full-time at Channel 2 for a while.

But then I went back to, funny enough, it circles back to Temple University.

I got to do their football team play by play for three years, which led to ESPN and a whole bunch of other things.

So that's how I got into broadcast.

I always wanted to do this, you know, I've had athletic heroes, but I've got heroes in broadcasting over the years.

And, you know, I've been at it for a long time, I've been doing play by play since 1990.

- So Dave, you opened up the Pandora's box.

So here's the deal.

You mentioned Philly.

All right, let's do this.

You're the voice of the Yankees now.

Chloe, one of our top young producers.

She's like, "You know Dave's from Philadelphia and he's an Eagles fan."

Okay, just let's deal with this.

Okay, fly Eagles.

I get the whole thing.

I know we're suffering with the Giants, but that's not the point.

Because you're a Philly guy at the core, but you're gonna be in the Bronx with the greatest sports franchise of all time.

- It's a no brainer.

You have nothing to worry about.

You have absolutely nothing to worry about that the Philly is in my heart.

But you gotta remember, I've been breathing New York Air for 50 years, so I'm a New York guy too.

I mean, you know, the beginnings, the foundation is Philly.

IE, I'm an I-95 guy.

I get the difference.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

I get the difference between the two.

I get the difference between the two, but the New York Yankees, that's my team now, those are my guys in baseball.

Football, that has nothing to do with the Yankees.

- Okay, but hold on Dave, but let me ask you this.

Sports fans, sports radio in Philly got its own rep. New York sports, you understand better than most, WFAN the whole bit, the whole history.

- I worked there.

Yeah, I mean I'm working there again.

- Dave, the biggest difference between Philly sports culture, New York sports culture, and by the way, we're stuck in the middle here in New Jersey and past a certain point, we know where we're going geographically.

And the other ones that go the other way.

Go ahead.

You know what I'm talking about.

- Oh, I know, you get past Princeton, you're generally in the Giant territory.

Anything south of that, "Hey, you want some cheese whiz with that?"

You know, so that's what we're doing, that's the beauty for me, you know, growing up in this area, living in it, you know, living here all these years, and in terms of being an Eagles fan, but doing Yankees game, I'm all in on the Yankees, just like when I was in Seattle.

- Yeah, talk about your Seattle experience.

That was more than a couple years.

- Yeah, I did 18 seasons and that opportunity happened in 07.

I was brought in, you know, beating out a whole bunch of other, a lot of guys who applied for the job, I got to work with Dave Niehaus who's a Hall of Famer, might be a name that you're not familiar with here on the East Coast, but- - Hold on Dave, that's play by play for the Seattle Mariners.

- Yes, sir.

And for years, when the (indistinct) came into existence for the greater part of their existence, for like 20 years, most of the games were on radio.

So he's a god out there.

He was winding down.

They'd bring me in and I would do the first three innings on radio and sort of color it.

And then Dave and I would switch in a hallway and I would go from radio to TV, he'd go TV to radio.

- What?

- Yeah.

And then sadly he passed in 2010.

And then I was full-time on TV.

Then these last five, six years I've been back and forth radio and TV, series on, series off, that kind of thing.

So radio's not as hardly a foreign entity to me when it comes to baseball, let alone basketball and football.

So I know the difference between doing games on radio and TV, it's horseshoes and hand grenades.

- Yeah, and could you go back for a second?

As you're going through this extraordinary career that is now entering a different level, a different, not just level, but different experience, and it's gonna be so great for those of us who get to hear Dave Sims on WFAN, I'm curious about this.

You mentioned earlier on, you were the first African American broadcaster where?

- At first, first African American sports writer, the Inquirer at Philly, and at the New York Daily News.

- Describe for folks who think the media business, for those of us who are in it, that we think it's challenging and difficult and there are obstacles.

Put that in context to your experience, Dave Sims.

- I would say, oh, in everything I've done in broadcasting, I've been a lone ranger almost everywhere I've been.

I've been one... One or one of two, you know, Black guys everywhere I've been, there's all, there's a whole 'nother, you could do a series, Steve, on that particular angle.

And why there's a dearth of African Americans in media.

Now it's gotten a heck of a lot better.

Here we are, 2025.

Well, I mean it's substantially better.

Sports writers, sportscasters, but you know.

- How bad was it, Dave Sims, how bad was it?

- Oh, I was, I started, when I got to the Daily News in '75, I might've been one of about 10 or 11 guys nationally working at major metropolitan dailies.

That number's gone up significantly since then.

- To what degree do you believe there were folks who were in leadership and managerial positions in media who did not buy into the idea that not just you, but a Black, a broadcaster who happened to be Black, Dave Sims, as great as you are, you're not right for our market.

- Yeah, you know, it's the same thing that you hear a lot of walks in business life, and in politics, people tend to lean towards people who sound like them, look like them, think like them.

And, you know, diversity is supposedly a hallmark of this country.

And I think that, you know, as I said, things have gotten better.

We've still got a ways to go.

And then the other thing too, when I speak to younger kids right now, and I, one on one or in groups, you know, you can achieve your dream if you want to do this.

I mean, you know, in the history of Major League Baseball, I'm gonna be like maybe the sixth, something like the fifth or sixth African American to hold, to be a lead announcer on a Major League Baseball team.

I mean, you know, broadcast baseball, broadcasting TV wise, figured date it back to '47, '48, '49 thereabout.

Matter of fact, the other day, earlier this week, I went to see the great Bill White, longtime voice of the Yankees.

- Great Bill White.

Who, and Bill White was his partner, with Frank Messer and- - And Phil and Scooter.

- You got it.

- And Scooter always going, "Hey White, hey White."

And yeah, I know, we had the same reaction.

And you know, Bill, God bless him, he's 90 years old.

He's still, he's pretty dog-gone sharp.

He looks good, if you check my social media out, we posted a picture with him on Monday.

It was just, it was heartwarming to see him.

He's in a senior home with his wife.

His wife's not doing as well as he is.

But I was with Marty Appel a long time.

- Marty Appel, great PR guy for the Yankees.

- Exactly.

Ed Randall has been around forever doing sports.

I tell you what, and the three of us have like hundred years of experience.

Bill touched our humanity like you can't believe, seeing what he did, you know, the way he was with his wife and then sitting down, yeah, he doesn't remember everything.

But if you said there was a couple, you know, I said Kaufax, "Oh, I didn't hit him."

"Left hand, you know, (indistinct) I could hit him."

And he, you know, specific things and you could just see, I mean, he was BILl White, you know, he started talking about the old days, talking about Scooter.

It was one of the most touching days I've ever had in my life, let alone in my sporting life.

So that was a special throw.

But I told him, I said, "Hey man, you're one of my heroes, because you were the first Black guy that I saw do sports," like at Channel 6 in Philly.

He was, after he retired, they hired him to do sports coverage.

- WPVI, the ABC affiliate.

- And then it was WFIL.

- Really?

- Oh yeah, oh, absolutely.

I'm a little bit older than you are, Steve.

- Okay, so he was in Philly?

Wait a minute.

- Oh yeah, he was with the, the back end of his career, won a World Series with the Cardinals 64, came to play with the Phillies for a few years, retired, worked at WFIL, and I think he did some big five games.

And then he came up here to New York and you know what happened there.

But I told him, I said, "You were an inspiration."

You know, my dad, Jackie Robinson, you know, outside of family is my number one hero.

Bill White is right there too, because he was the first Black announcer that I saw that had a steady gig, a great, he's at New York, come on.

He says, "No, no, no, no, I'm not taking credit for that.

You did your thing."

I said, "No, you're right.

But you paved the way, and I just want, come here."

I wanna give him a big hug.

I said, "I just have to thank you."

And I also have to thank Marty Appel and Billy Werndel, who's a talk show host in Philly, had been around forever.

And when it was announced that I got the Yankee job, Billy on like Monday and I think Wednesday, independent of each other.

He says, "You know, you have to go to Philadelphia, go down to, you know where Bill is, and you gotta shake his hand and thank him in person for paving the way forward."

I said, "Done.

We'll do it."

We set up a date, we went, it was a fabulous day on Monday.

- And by the way, for those who do not know who Bill White is and why he matters and why he mattered, in particular for those of us who were kids and grew up as Yankee fans, Bill White, Frank Messer, and Phil "the Scooter" Rizzuto, what a team.

And it made it so personal.

And I don't wanna, listen, I respect that there are other teams out there, but for those of us who grew up as Yankee fans, those people matter in our lives.

- Lemme get one more thing in, you'll appreciate this as a Yankee fan, I told Bill, I did 18 seasons with the Mariners.

On more than one occasion, if I got particularly a righthander, if he hit a ball really well, and I know you know where I'm going.

"Deep to left!"

Right?

Bucky Dent home run.

Yastrzemski is not gonna get it, It’s a home run!

- He made the call.

Deep to left, that's the way the call started.

Deep to left.

Hold on.

Listen, speaking of deep to left, which is not a signature call, it was his call in real time.

I gotta ask you this, you know where I'm going.

You know where I'm going?

- No, no, no, I don't.

- "Hey now, Hey now".

- Oh, okay.

- Okay.

So "Hey Now!"

is in fact the name, the "Hey Now!"

podcast, but "Hey now", which I remember, I know it's yours, but when I used to watch, what's the guy's name who was the sidekick?

Hank Kingsley on Garry Shandling's Show.

- Hey, now, where did you get it, and how did you make it work for you?

- I grew up listening to American Standards with my dad in Philly.

Sinatra fan, I know he was Italian, you'd appreciate it.

- Hey listen, we understand you.

- All right, so, and you can tell I'm from, you know, I got a lot of Italian friends.

I use the hands, the whole thing.

- You're part Italian, I can tell.

- So, great song.

"I Got the World on a String" written by Harold Arlen in 1932.

Big hit for a lot of people.

Frank crushed it in the mid 50s.

And as you remember- - Sitting on a rainbow.

- Exactly.

And at the back end, what's he say, he goes, "Hey, now, I'm in love."

I heard that one night.

I said, "If I can work that into a broadcast, I'm going to."

- Are you serious?

- Yeah.

And God, hey, I'm a big Howard Stern fan, and Jeffrey Tambor from Gary Shandling Show.

But I said, "This is credit to Mr.

Sinatra."

Come on now.

That's where it came from.

- That's beautiful.

Howard used it, but it was Sinatra.

You're right.

- Yeah.

It was at night.

I looked it up and I thought it was a song from the 50s, Harold Arlen wrote it with Herbs Koehler, I think his name was, back in '32 for, and it was actually, I think it was performed in the Cotton Club here in New York City.

- In Harlem.

- Yes sir.

- Hey Dave, are you considered, 'cause people watching right now are saying "This guy is a walking encyclopedia of information."

How the heck, when did you know that your brain was wired, is wired that way?

- Great question.

My mother was a teacher slash librarian.

She used to bring, I remember was it the world almanac, USA, was it US information?

It was all kinds of almanacs.

Coffee table books about sports, about entertainment.

I always took to American history, the good, the bad and ugly of it.

And then certainly baseball, and all the sports.

It's tremendous history, unbelievable personality, stories up the wazoo.

And I've been been around sports since I was yo big.

I mean my father was taking me to, I grew up, growing up in Philly, we went to Eagles games, went to Phillies games went to Wilt Chamberlain, and the Warriors when they were there.

So I've been around it all my life as my wife can well document, I was not meant to be a mathematician or a chemist.

So I'm in the right line of work.

- Hold on one second.

You mentioned Wilt.

He scored the 100 points in Philly.

- No, no, no.

In Hershey against the Knicks.

- No.

No, no.

- It was Hershey, Pennsylvania.

- But he was playing for Philadelphia.

- Right, he was playing for the Warriors though, before they moved, before they went there.

- They're in Hershey?

- The game was in Hershey.

- Not in Philly.

- Correct.

Not at Convention Hall.

- 100 points.

- Yeah.

- And one year he averaged 50 at 25.

Yeah.

- You saw him in person.

- Not that game.

Hardly anybody was there.

- But what the heck?

- I saw him a lot.

I tell you what, when Wilt wrote that book and that whole thing, about 20,000 women and everything, he was in town doing a promotion.

- It's a family show.

It's PBS.

But you mentioned it, not me.

- All right, you're off the hook.

So he comes to a game and I was on the Knicks pre, on radio.

I was doing a Knick's pre-game, halftime and post-game.

And I remember interviewing Wilt, and he was a lovely, fascinating guy.

A deep voice, personality.

And I'll never forget the producer waving me off.

It's like, "Yo, we got a second half coming up, you gotta get out."

And it was just a wonderful four or five minutes with Wilt.

And I did interview once with Eddie Coleman when I was FAN at Mickey (indistinct) Restaurant.

- Did you see the documentary about Bill Russell?

- Oh, yes, yes.

- Russell and Chamberlain.

How amazing.

- Fierce competitors, but very close off the court and Wilt's mom would have 'em over and then they'd go and try to kill each other in the- - It was the great.

If you haven't seen it, watch that documentary, it's great.

Before I let you go, I got a couple minutes left.

The "Hey Now!"

podcast, A, where can people find it?

- Alright, Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcast, and we're on YouTube.

And I think this week's episode we have Steven Bolt, who's the American League Manager of the Year.

We got Tony Kornheiser on the audio shorty edition or the audio version.

And who else we got?

We have Ken Singleton.

You was a Yankee fan, Ken Singleton's one of the greatest, ah, one of the greatest dudes ever.

And a hell of a player.

- For the Orioles.

- Yeah, and he had a great career, great broadcast career here in New York, as you know.

And on the third try he finally retired because they can't, it was like in Al Pacino, "Every time I think I stop, they're just dragging me back in!"

- Go back to the podcast.

Hold on a second.

it sounds like a podcast of passion, a passion project.

Is it?

- Yeah, you know, having done so much sports talk over the years with my son a year, but yeah, about a year ago at this time, "Hey, you need to do this, and I think I can put together a team, social media."

- Your son told you.

- Yeah.

And I think we can do this, so, stay tuned.

We, I think we're going, I know we're going in the right direction and I know everybody and their brother has a podcast, but I'm thinking that we might be a little bit different, and Lord knows we put a lot of effort into it and we're real happy with it.

So you can follow us- - Dave I’ll say this, even though sports broadcasting media has changed dramatically, and there are all these different platforms, I'll say this.

For you to have this opportunity, for them to be smart enough, the Yankees, for you to replace the great John Sterling who, his own unique person to work, you'd be working with Susan?

- Oh yeah.

Susan and I go way back.

This is gonna be a blast.

Yeah.

- It is a blessing.

It is a gift to those of us who care about the Yankees, listen to the Yankee broadcast on radio.

And I just want to say, as my friend and colleague I've known forever, I'm so happy for you.

It is well deserved, my friend.

Congratulations Dave Sims.

- Steve, thank you very much.

Good to see you, man.

And hey, I'll look for you at the stadium sometime.

Let me know when you're coming up.

- The last time you were doing a game at the Prudential, you were broadcasting.

My son said, "Well, you know, Dave Sims.

Go say hello."

I go, "He's broadcasting right now.

I'm not gonna tap him on the shoulder."

So Dave, all the best my friend.

- All the best, Steve.

Thanks man, appreciate it.

- That's the great Dave Sims, the voice of the New York Yankees on WFAN.

He's the best.

See you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Kean University.

Englewood Health.

The Fidelco Group.

The New Jersey Education Association.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

Wells Fargo.

And by PSE&G.

Promotional support provided by NJBIZ.

And by BestofNJ.com.

- Hi, I'm Abbie.

You might see me as an ordinary person, but I've been living with a brain injury since 2018.

Opportunity Project gave me hope and I've gained confidence through job skill training and helping my family.

Despite my challenges with memory, I see a possibility to keep improving.

- [Narrator] If you have a brain injury, you don't have to face your road to recovery alone.

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