​Dodgers broadcasters Charley Steiner, left, and Rick Monday work together in the Dodger Stadium radio booth in September 2023. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)The radio broadcasters reminded listeners of the final score, invited them to tune in again the next day, and signed off. The Dodgers had lost Saturday, so the sounds of “California Stars” wafted through Dodger Stadium.“Well,” Charley Steiner said to his colleagues in the broadcast booth, “they’re still playing this song.”The little things can be the ones we remember the most. On Saturday, for the first time in three years, Steiner called all nine innings of a Dodgers game.In 2024, he beat cancer into remission. The first sign was back pain. He later suffered three back fractures, and to this day the pain is still there.“It’s gone from intolerable to tolerable,” Steiner said.He left Dodger Stadium in a wheelchair Saturday. He can walk, but the trek from the broadcast booth to the parking lot is too much, at least for now.Read more:Jacob Misiorowski outduels Justin Wrobleski as Brewers send Dodgers to frustrating lossYet he was in the booth, and on the air for nine innings, so Saturday was a very good day indeed.Steiner returned for opening day in 2025, but he wore down and left midway through the game. He has called a few games this season, for a few innings each time, building up his workload as if he were a pitcher in spring training.On Thursday, after Steiner called six innings, he said he would like to try seven the next time. Duane McDonald, the Dodgers’ radio producer, encouraged him to try the full nine.And so Steiner did, his voice sounding raspy and rusty in the early innings but getting stronger with each successive inning.He called the statistics put up by Milwaukee Brewers prodigy Jacob Misiorowski “Koufaxian numbers.” He translated an infield single with an exit velocity of 37 mph into everyday language: “That’s driving in the school zone.”And, on an afternoon Dodgers starter Justin Wrobleski gave up two home runs — that’s 11 homers surrendered in his last 19⅔ innings — Steiner did not miss a beat when reading an advertisement: “Toyota dealers: they make it easy. Wrobleski makes it hard.”The Dodgers have consistently and graciously told Steiner to take all the time he needed to get better, but recovery is slow, uneven and ongoing.Read more:Edwin Díaz feels he’s ‘going in a good direction’ after escaping jam in Dodgers’ win“Who would have ever thought that sitting could be painful?” Steiner said.“I get home after a game, and I’m sitting with three ice packs on my back. It’s like I’ve completed playing.”In the broadcast booth, he sometimes alternates between standing and sitting, or puts his feet up on a table, anything to avoid sitting for hours on end.The happiest person next to Steiner on Saturday was the one who has been next to Steiner for two decades in the booth: Rick Monday, who checked on Steiner almost eve