Michael Kay will be play-by-play man for Yankees-Red Sox AL Wild Card Series on ESPN Radio
Michael Kay in the YES Network broadcast booth at Yankee Stadium in 2019. Credit: AP
Michael Kay will be behind the mic for next week’s expected Yankees-Red Sox playoff series. But it will be a different mic.
Kay, the Yankees’ play-by-play announcer for the YES Network, will be the national play-by-play man for the series on ESPN Radio.
“It’s so cool,” Kay told Newsday on Thursday in a telephone interview. “Really, really pumped up. The last Yankee game I called on radio was (World Series) Game 7 in 2001 with John (Sterling). I thought that was the last game I'd ever call with the Yankees involved on the radio. So to get this opportunity 25 years later, it was really cool.”
Kay, who will also be part of YES’ playoff pre- and postgame shows, will be joined by analysts Eduardo Perez and Tim Kurkjian in the ESPN Radio booth as heard locally on 1050 AM (Game 2 will also be carried on 880 AM). Since he'll be broadcasting to a national audience, Kay might have to keep his "See Ya" call in his pocket if a Yankee hits a home run.
Yankees fans will also have the option of listening to the regular radio duo of Dave Sims and Suzyn Waldman on WFAN. The games, which will be held at Yankee Stadium from Tuesday to Thursday (if all three are needed), will be televised by NBC, most likely beginning at 8 p.m. each night.
Kay has called other postseason games for ESPN Radio over the years, so he’s not totally rusty after 25 years in the YES TV booth. Kay and Sterling were Yankees radio partners for 10 seasons before YES was launched in 2002.
“I think I should be able to get right back into it because I have done radio playoff games for ESPN before,” Kay said, and of course he has been a radio talk show host on ESPN NY since 2002.
One of Kay’s playoff radio game partners was a fellow named Aaron Boone, who happens to be the Yankees manager. Boone was involved this week in an awkward situation with Aaron Judge about whether the captain will be able to play in the series as he is dealing with a calf injury. After Boone seemed to rule out Judge (while adding “you never know” and a few “we’ll sees”), Judge said his plan was to play in Game 1.
There was also a silly subplot about the exact grade of Judge's strain.
“I just thought that whole thing was kind of laughable,” Kay said. “When we asked Boone what the strain was, he said he didn't know what level, what grade. And then, same thing with Judge. Of course you know the grade. You have to. And if you didn't, well, Brian Cashman knows it and I'm sure that Aaron Judge had asked the trainers and the doctors what the grade was. So, as long as we don't know the grade, I don't know if we can really make an educated decision of when he's supposed to be back. I have no idea.”
It’s hard to handicap the series without knowing if Judge will play (and if he does if he will be effective) or if Giancarlo Stanton will play or who the Yankees will go with at third base or centerfield and how they will match up against Boston’s lefty-heavy pitching staff.
“So much rests on the situation with Judge as far as how the Yankees will do offensively,” Kay said. “I don't have any concerns about their pitching. I'm hearing whispers about maybe starting (Cam) Schlittler in Game 2, saving him for Game 2, which I would probably go the other way. You have the best pitcher in the American League. You should start him in Game 1. But they probably have their reasons if that's the route they go.
“The Red Sox are really a pesky team. They’ve come back after they fired (Alex) Cora, have been amazing, and obviously there's that extra tension of Yankees-Red Sox, and neither team wants to have their season end. I think that adds even more drama to the wild card . . . I think the teams match up evenly. Obviously, the season series was very close. Yankees won 7-6. So I think it's going to be a great series.”
Anthony Rieber covers sports media and business and professional sports (you know, games and trades and things). He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since Jan. 1, 2026.
More sports media
