The New York Yankees have retired more numbers than any team in baseball. Here is my personal ranking of the retired numbers of the Yankees:

1)      Babe Ruth, #3

2)      Joe DiMaggio, #5

3)      Lou Gehrig, #4

4)      Mickey Mantle, #7

5)      Derek Jeter, #2

6)      Whitey Ford, #16

7)      Yogi Berra, #8

8)      Bernie Williams, #51

9)      Bill Dickey, #8

10)   Phil Rizzuto, #10

11)   Andy Pettitte, #46

12)   Thurman Munson, #15

13)   Ron Guidry, #49

14)   Jorge Posada, #20

15)   Don Mattingly, #23

16)   Paul O'Neill, #21

17)   Elston Howard, #32

18)   Mariano Rivera, #42

19)   Casey Stengel, #37

20)   Joe Torre, #6

21)   Roger Maris, #9

22)   Reggie Jackson, #44

23)   Billy Martin, #1

Most of what we see in this list would make perfect sense to most people, and the top seven are clearly household names, but there are a few things that require some explanation. I treated managers, and even relief pitchers, different than the standard players who have been honored. I didn’t feel like putting managers higher than players who spent all or most of their careers with the Yankees – or relief pitchers, but I do put them above managers. So while nobody would question that Rivera is a hall of fame relief pitcher or that Stengel is a hall of fame manager, I have them lower than several players who have questionable hall of fame candidacies.

The two other rankings that I’d like to explain are Maris and Jackson. Both are ranked lower simply because they had short careers (less than 1,000 games) in New York, and didn’t play their entire careers there. If Jackson had played his entire career with the Yankees, he would be ranked up around Jeter and Berra. If Maris played every season of his career with the Yankees, he would move up to the Pettitte and Munson area of the list. The two aren’t perfect selections for that reason.

I have been a Yankees fan since I was seven years old, and have listened to many different announcers on both television and radio during the 35+ years since then. For some time now, I have been feeling that the radio broadcasts are overdue for a change. I like John Sterling, but I think it should be possible to have others be heard on radio besides just him and Suzyn Waldman.

I recommend having analysts from YES alternate between TV and radio during games. YES generally uses some combination of Ken Singleton, Paul O’Neill, David Cone, and John Flaherty as analysts during various series throughout the season.

For example, if Michael Kay, Paul O’Neill, David Cone, and John Flaherty were working the YES telecast on a particular day, each analyst would work six innings on TV with Kay and one other analyst, and three innings on radio with Sterling (Waldman would work just the pre and post-game and star of the game, like Meredith Marakovits on TV):

Radio

Sterling (1-9), Flaherty (1-3), Cone (4-6), O’Neill (7-9)

TV

Kay (1-9), Cone (1-3, 7-9), O’Neill (1-6), Flaherty (4-9)

On a series when YES only has two working the game, the one analyst would stay on TV for the entire game and Waldman would work the entire game on radio as she has previously. Much of the time though, the listeners would hear some different people.

Plus, the analysts should be used on any post-season radio broadcasts. In the ALDS, ALCS, and World Series, I’d have Cone and O’Neill work the games in New York and Singleton and Flaherty work the away games. In all three post season series, Waldman would work the pre and post-game and Sterling would call play-by-play for all innings of all games in each series.

I got the idea because I liked how it was done back in the Phil Rizzuto, Frank Messer, and Bill White era, for example, when they would split time between TV and radio. The one difference then was that each of them would call play-by-play on radio, and often alone. What I’m talking about now pertains more to the many analysts who the Yankees could have work alongside a play-by-play announcer on both TV and radio. It’s a different situation.

My point isn’t that these people have done a poor job, I just think they should be used differently. Plus, YES has so many analysts while radio only has the same two announcers on all of the time. Maybe those in charge of on-air talent will take notice of my ideas.