Sterling subs on either side of quality spectrum

IN WHAT has to be the most dysfunctional season in Yankees broadcasting history, another week of, well, dysfunction.

It actually began well, with Justin Shackil, baby-faced Fordham man, in a public, battlefield audition as John Sterling’s sub with Sterling taking off road games.

Working from Toronto, Shackil allowed this listener something I’d been deprived of since Sterling arrived in 1989: the ability to enjoy a Yankees game on a nice weekend day, outside, over a transistor or car radio.

He placed the games first, stayed with it and on top of it — like the classically schooled dues-payer he is. At no time did he fall in love with the sound of his own voice. The primary goal of radio play-by-play folks, serving as our eyes and ears, was fulfilled. He was ready, willing and extremely able.

Not so good with the next contestant, Rickie Ricardo, born Jorge Lima Jr., the veteran radio voice of Yankees baseball and NFL Eagles in Spanish. He worked the series at the Rays.

Ricardo was earnest in his calls, too much so. Every pitch, play and commercial he read was decorated in affected flourishes and dramatic additives, thus a pitch thrown low was given annoying, richly undeserved emphasis.

Suzyn Waldman was no help as she repeatedly interrupted him as if to assert her temporary role as the broadcasts’ Alpha voice.

One was left to wonder if Ricardo would have been more palatable had he not chosen to sound like a bad lounge act at Richie’s Roadside Burp & Brew on the approach to Reno.

Over to YES, where it was again time to suffer the untreated observations of the obvious and ridiculous from Cameron Maybin. Start to finish, Maybin again screamed out for the help that YES can’t or won’t provide. The same mute-button mutiny applied when Carlos Beltran enters.

A sampler: Maybin, after Anthony Rizzo struck out, enlightened us with, “Anthony doesn’t like to strike out.” And after Aaron Hicks was again seen posing at the plate in selfadmiration on a triple off the wall that reasonably could have been an inside-the-park number, as right fielder Manuel Margot fell injured, praised Hicks for his “energetic” running.

How much more would YES charge if it produced even mediocre telecasts?