Yankees Announcer Fires Back at Former NFL MVP Over Early Criticism originally appeared on Athlon Sports.

When the New York Yankees traveled to California for a May series against the Athletics, they had a notable name missing from their traveling party—and, luckily for their sake, it wasn’t Aaron Judge or Max Fried.

First-year Yankees radio announcer Dave Sims took that series off and instead flew to Seattle, the Yankees’ next stop on their West Coast road trip, to spend time with his son. Sims rejoined the Yankees several days later for their three-game set against the Mariners.

At the time, longtime NFL quarterback and New York radio host Boomer Esiason slammed Sims for taking a series off “40 games into his career” as the Yankee announcer. Although Esiason clarified that he enjoys Sims’ work, the 1988 NFL MVP also wondered how and why a first-year play-by-play would skip a series so early in the season.

“You just took the Yankee job!” Esiason said then. “It’s supposed to be the job of your life.”

Sims fired back on the “Awful Announcing Podcast,” explaining that the Yankees and WFAN approved his decision beforehand.

“If you look at the schedules of just about every broadcaster in the major leagues, they take time off,” Sims said. “It’s not like I took time off Labor Day in the middle of a pennant race.

“It was May — almost middle May — and I wanted to see my son,” Sims continued. “And it was the only time we were going to be going out west, and we had some things we had to take to him … I wasn’t going to make my wife do that.”

Neither Esiason nor WFAN had commented at publication. WFAN airs Esiason’s morning show and also holds the Yankees’ local radio rights.

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This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jul 14, 2025, where it first appeared.