2,000 and counting for Holman’s streak (COLUMN)

Newnan resident calls 2,000th straight game for the Hawks.

Atlanta Hawks broadcaster Steve Holman

When John Sterling accepted a job in 1989 to be a play-by-play announcer for the New York Yankees the following season, the sports broadcasting landscape in the Atlanta market would change dramatically and set history.
By accepting this job, Sterling would no longer call the Atlanta Hawks basketball games which was something he had done since 1981 and Atlanta Braves baseball games which he had worked since 1983.
Since that time, fans of the Bronx Bombers have heard his call of "The Yankees win! Thuuu Yankees win! The Yankees...win!" and “an A-bomb from A-Rod” as well as other calls.
That time period has also allowed one of the longest broadcasting streak to reach 2,000 games as Steve Holman hit that magic number Wednesday night when the Hawks hosted the Brooklyn Nets at Philips Arena.
What makes this streak of the Newnan resident is the 2,000 games is with the same team which is unheard of in the sports broadcasting field as announcer usually have two or teams on their resume before they reach the age of 40.
Holman has done NBA games for the Boston Celtics when the legendary Johnny Most was ill and for the Hawks for almost 30 years.
While the Hawks players haven’t always been consistent, the position of voice has been with the late Skip Caray serving from 1968 when the team moved from St. Louis to Sterling who took over in 1982 when Caray concentrated his efforts with the Braves until his passing in 2008 and now Holman.
Working as a voice for one team for a long time is remarkable for any team except in Atlanta as the aforementioned Caray and Pete Van Wieren served the Atlanta Braves for 33 seasons while Joe Simpson will be in his 22nd season and Sutton will be in his 23^rd year with the team which has a two-year absence to broadcast with the Washington Nationals.
However, the quartet missed games during the season for a variety of reasons
While it may not be considered to be on the level as that of Cal Ripken’s 2632 and Lou Gehrig’s 2130 in baseball, the 297 of Brett Favre’s in the NFL and the 1,192 of A.C. Green in the NBA, the broadcasting streak of the 58-year-old Holman’s will be hard to beat.
However, the NBA mark of 3,338 set by former Los Angeles Lakers announcer Chick Hearn remains pretty solid unless Holman wants to chase that mark and he might.
That would probably be something his father would not object to as he preached to him to be a hard worker.
Of course it might help if the team that he lives and dies for on the air (something many of us discover frequently and I discovered in an interview I did with him a few years ago) would play a little better or he may not make it to 3,338.
As for the man he replaced, Sterling has not missed a Yankees game since joining the club and called every pitch during the 2005 season.
That is definitely someone one of my brothers would consider to possess leather lungs when one does 162 games everyday for 23 years.
According to my math, that is approximately 3,700 games when one includes the strike-shortened 1994 and 1995 seasons.
Regardless, going to work everyday for years is an achievement in various avenues of life and what Holman, Sterling and Hearn have accomplished is pretty cool.