ANAHEIM, Calif. — This one was simple, John Sterling said, and you can understand why. Mike Ford is a baseball player with a long backstory and a simple name, both of which come in handy. You can fill some air time during long at-bats telling tales of Ford’s long journey from Princeton through parts of seven minor league seasons.

More useful, it made things much easier for Sterling when, in the top of the fifth inning Tuesday night at Anaheim’s picturesque ballpark, Ford crushed a pitch from the Angels’ Chris Stratton well over the right-field scoreboard for the first home run of his career.

Sterling, of course, has made home-run-fueled nicknames one of his calling cards on radio broadcasts in recent years and his audience has come not only to look forward to them but to instantly critique them — and to even anticipate them.

Some speculated Sterling, a history buff, might steal from a famous tabloid front page headline of yesteryear: “FORD TO BASEBALL: DROP DEAD!” Or, as he sometimes does, perhaps he’d use the first name and the last name cleverly: “DROP THE MIKE, FORD!”

He went another way: pairing two old slogans for the Ford Motor Company, one decades old — “For the Yankees, there’s a Ford in your future!” — and one that even the kiddies are familiar with: “Mike is Ford tough!”

It might’ve taken the young folks a minute or two to Google the first one and discover it was first employed in a 1946 advertising campaign, but there are worse uses of search engines than learning about history, right? In any event, the internet approved.

And this “amazing little cottage industry,” as Sterling calls it, received another addition to an ever-growing roster.

“Ford was great because it was so easy,” Sterling said Wednesday afternoon, laughing, a few hours before assuming his regular perch in the radio booth on the third deck of Angels Stadium where he’d call the Yankees’ 6-5 comeback victory over the Angels. “But I have to confess: I’m still not sure what I’ll do with ‘Urshela’ when the time comes.”

Yes, this cute little cottage industry can be a bit stressful because it has become as much a part of the Yankees as the pinstripes and the interlocking “NY.” Back in the day when he was working Atlanta Hawks TV games, Sterling first got a taste for just how much people enjoyed his name-game fun when he’d voice Dominque Wilkins highlights — “Dominique Terrifique!” was a favorite.

Sterling has been accused through the years, fairly or not, of forcing some of his signature calls, but there is no arguing this one: it grew organically. Bernie Williams hit a big home run one night against the Red Sox and “Bern, baby, Bern!” was born.

Through the years, Derek Jeter’s homers were accompanied with “El Capitan,” Alex Rodriguez’s with “An A-Bomb … from A-Rod,” Mark Teixeira’s with two: “He sent a Tex Message” and “You’re on the Mark, Teixeira!” Sterling’s inspirations for Jason Giambi (Giambino!”) and Robinson Cano (“Don’t-cha know!”) became so ingrained, they’re part of both players’ bio pages on baseball-reference.com.

“But it was never supposed to be for every player,” Sterling said. “Until … well, it became something for every player.”

That makes this season a special kind of challenge. In the same way Aaron Boone massages his temples before filling out his lineup with new and heretofore unknown names, so does Sterling have to ponder, waiting for inspiration to strike. Sometimes, it doesn’t happen until the moment of impact.

Sterling seemed as surprised as anyone the first time Mike Tauchman touched ’em all — and, well, let’s just say the result, “Tauchman the Sockman!” wasn’t the best-received of the dozens of ones that came before.

Of course, the Ford two-fer more than made up for it.

“It’s gratifying to hear how much people like them and look forward to them,” Sterling said. “People who know me know I don’t spend one bit of time on the internet, so I’m not really aware of what people say there. But I know people who come up to me seem to love that I do this.”

Funny thing, too. In the years Jeter played for the Yankees, it was always remarkable to see how many kids, on baseball fields all across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, adopted his swing and his mannerisms.

Sterling has had a similar impact.

It says here that one of the few guarantees in sports is that every Yankees fan alive — every single one — has, at one time or another, seen the final out of a Yankees game and exclaimed: “THUUUUUUUUH YANKEES WIN!”

That alone was a timeless cottage industry.

This far along in the game, he’s actually created another. Now, to find something that rhymes with Urshela…