Craig Carton will make WFAN return to call three Yankees games

Craig Carton will get a chance to try his hand at baseball broadcasting next month when he joins Suzyn Waldman as part of the WFAN broadcast crew during the Yankees’ series with the Rangers next month. 

Carton announced that he would be working alongside the veteran baseball broadcaster for the Aug. 9-11 series during an appearance on the “Evan and Tiki show” on WFAN on Monday, calling the opportunity a “great honor” and a “great privilege.” 

While Carton’s on-air personality over the years has been on the dramatic side at times, he said Monday that there won’t be anything over the top about his Yankees calls.

“I want to be clear about that,” he said during the WFAN appearance. “I’m not going to do something that’s clownish. I got to leave the crazy home run calls to the memory of John [Sterling] and his greatness of all of the years. But I’ll do my best. I’ll make sure that it’s unmistakably me and it’s just awesome.”

Carton had, of course, became a household name during his 10-year run as the co-host of the station’s morning show, “Boomer and Carton in the Morning,” which came to an end following a federal arrest in 2017 for criminal charges of security fraud. 

He returned to WFAN in 2020 after he was released from prison and hosted the afternoon drive show with Evan Roberts before leaving in June 2023 to focus solely on his Fox Sports 1 TV program. 

During Monday’s appearance, Carton joked that he wanted to be the Yankees’ good luck charm in a similar way Grimace has served that purpose for the Mets this season.

Carton also reiterated the magnitude of the honor. 

“It’s the New York Yankees, man. It’s the legend of John Sterling and Mel Allen,” Craig said. “I’ll be sitting in a chair that only a couple people in the history of the franchise can say they called a Yankee game on the radio.”

While Carton has made his bones as a sports talk host, he has called a handful of professional sports broadcasts, including an Islanders game and a Nets game as part of agreements between WFAN and the respective teams, who had some of their games aired on the station. 

Last week, it was announced that Carton would be inducted into the New York State Broadcasters Association Hall of fame.

WFAN has been using a rotation of broadcasters to work alongside Waldman since legendary Yankees radio voice John Sterling retired in April. 

Among those who have worked on Yanks broadcasts on the station, the list includes Justin Shackil, Emmanuel Berbari, Rickie Ricardo and Brendan Burke.