He has been in pain for so long, but that pain is slowly subsiding.
He has been silenced for nearly a year, but he finally feels like shouting.
A day after Los Angeles was rejoicing over the arrival of the World Series, a voice of the city was celebrating two different words.
Cancer remission.
On Monday after the Dodgers won the National League Championship Series against the New York Mets to set up a World Series matchup with the New York Yankees, longtime radio announcer Charley Steiner received news worthy of an even bigger champagne celebration.
He learned that his multiple myeloma blood cancer was in remission.
“Remission is a beautiful word,” he said this week. “Monday was one of those days where it was like, OK, we’re good.”
For nearly a year, for the 20-year announcer who has become a fixture on Southland radios, it has been bad.
Read more: Shaikin: Charley Steiner, Rick Monday still on (radio) call after all these years
The disease, which Steiner had not publicly revealed until now, kept him off the air for the entire season while quietly ravaging his world.
He endured constant debilitating lower back pain. He lost 50 pounds. He was confined to a wheelchair. He initially moved his bed from the second floor of his Westside home down to the family room because he couldn’t climb the stairs. He enlisted the full-time help of nurses. It wasn’t pretty.
“He’s gone through hell,” said his longtime radio partner Rick Monday
An extremely private person, Steiner lived the nightmare without fanfare, without telling anyone outside of his inner-circle, the loquacious storyteller keeping his most important words to himself.
“He did not want to be the story,” said Monday. “I can’t imagine how challenging it has been for him.”
That challenge became even more unbearable once the World Series matchup was set between the Dodgers and the New York Yankees.
Steiner and the legendary Red Barber are the only two announcers who have worked for both teams, as Steiner was the Yankees broadcaster for three years before joining the Dodgers in 2005.
Steiner is the man in the middle of this matchup but, aside from a scheduled short visit to Dodger Stadium for Game 1, he won’t be…