The Anti-Homers
Bob Raissman of the NY Daily News discusses the future of SNY’s Mets broacast team, Gary, Keith and Ron. At the end of Sunday’s game, Keith alluded to the fact that he may not return next season.
“I’ve enjoyed the four years and, hopefully, I’m in the middle of negotiating my new contract, hopefully, I’ll be back (next season),” Hernandez said.
The team declined to comment on the matter, but Raissman speculates that the issue boils down to money.
Of course, in most of these situations, it’s all about the moolah. On this issue, from the outside looking in, Hernandez may have some leverage. Darling is locked into a multiyear contract. Cohen ain’t going nowhere, either.Â
The article takes a strange turn, as Raissman says fans may perceive Keith “as just another selfish ex-ballplayer” for choosing now to drop the bomb on fans who had to endure the horrible season.
I think Raissman is reading way too much into this. Even if the parties are not able to work out a new contract, I don’t think the fans will think of Keith “as just another selfish ex-ballplayer.” We already know that Keith values his time away from the broadcast booth, so why would it be such a shock if Keith chose not to return?
Additionally, Raissman ignores what Keith said; specifically that he hopes to return.
What do you guys think? Is this much ado about nothing? Or is the old saying true? Good Things Never Last!
For a wonderful article on the guys in the booth, read The New York Observer’s John Koblin, “The Anti-Homers“
19 comments
CaseStreet
10/6/2009-12:36pm at 12:36 pm (UTC -4)
Really good stuff in Koblin’s piece.
I’d really hate to see the team broken up and I doubt it’ll happen this year.
metsfan4decades
10/6/2009-1:02pm at 1:02 pm (UTC -4)
Sometime in the past week or so, GKR were talking about their booth, this year, plans for next year. Keith said something to the effect that he was enjoying his time and he didn’t know how he would feel say, 4 years or so down the road but right now, it’s what he wants to do. So I’d have to say if contract negotiations work out, he’ll be back next year.
I have to tell you, in my 40 years plus as a Met fan, I’ve never enjoyed watching games as much as I do on SNY. I loved Ralph Kiner back in the day, Lindsey Nelson and Bob Murphy on the radio. But Gary, Keith and Ron just have the perfect chemistry together.
Gary remembers everything there is to remember about NY Met baseball – and heck, baseball in general. He’s clearly a life long fan. And his transition from radio to TV I believe was a very successful one.
Ronnie has spot on analysis and is a professional. It’s easy to see why he’s got 1? 2? Emmy’s as a broadcaster/analyst.
And Keith is Keith. He’s the third piece, with his personality, that is just different enough to work. He too is spot on with his observations on hitting and pitching. He might be a little over the top for some with complimenting the oppositions at bat or player but personally, that doesn’t bother me – most times….
And if anyone has watched enough of them, you’d know Keith absolutely hates the fact that runners dance around home plate when coming in on a close play, instead of barreling over the catcher. He also can’t stand when runners don’t get it right on the base paths and hesitate too much, or take off when they shouldn’t. So neeedless to say, with this past year Keith had lots to say on that subjects…
I sincerely hope all three will be together for years to come.
Kingman 26
10/6/2009-1:05pm at 1:05 pm (UTC -4)
Wow, I sure agree with every word of this….and I also fondly remember the days when Kiner, Murphy, and Nelson switched off from radio to TV and did every game just the three of them…..
gipperpdx
10/6/2009-1:24pm at 1:24 pm (UTC -4)
MF4D is spot on here.
Frankly, SNY HAS to cave to whatever Keith is demanding. Living out of the area, and being stuck with the Extra Innings cable package means I have been exposed to all the various baseball TV broadcast booths…and SNY’s current booth is far and away the best in the industry. The only other one that even comes close is the Dodger booth when it is just Vin Scully. The rest are a bunch of hacks and homers.
I can take the team continuing to stink,…but for the love of God, don’t screw up the one thing this franchise has excelled in over the last few years: the great broadcast team.
GravediggerHebner
10/6/2009-3:13pm at 3:13 pm (UTC -4)
I guess I’ll be the heretic here.
Keith is my favorite Met ballplayer of all time. I love how he approached the game in all facets. His engagement with the moment brought me closer to it, always, during his playing career.
But that same engagement is clearly not there as a broadcaster. It’s not fair of me to expect it to be. Regardless, it’s not. For a while I found his myriad mistakes and his obvious lack of paying attention to what his fellow announcers had just said cute. Maybe it was because the team was so bad, but this season I found Keith’s quasi-attention annoying. In one way it was a welcome distraction – I wasn’t focused on how badly the team was doing, I was focused on how badly one of the TV analysts was doing.
As Gip mentions above, I also have had in the past the DirecTV baseball package. I have experienced almost every club’s announcing team, and around the league they range mostly from simply bad to insufferable. Listening to Hawk Harrelson announce a White Sox game makes me hate baseball and that’s very hard to do (“C’mon, stretch. Put it on the boooooard, yessssss!” is the definition of a ‘homer’ homer call). I realize, in my subjective opinion, that the Mets have one of the best and perhaps the best TV teams going.
Ultimately I would prefer if the team remained intact, but if, gun to my head, I was told I’d have to do without one of the three, the choice is easy for me, it’s Keith.
Kingman 26
10/6/2009-3:48pm at 3:48 pm (UTC -4)
Agreed all around….Keith is also my all-time favorite Met, and the leader of the greatest Met team ever.
I find him amusing as an announcer, but he is just so lazy and unprofessional, and really makes no bones about it.
Gary and Ron, just the two of them, would very possibly be even better than they are with Keith.
If he leaves though, I am sure the Wilpons would quickly erect several statues of him and commission a large mural to cover most of the left field wall.
metsfan4decades
10/6/2009-4:04pm at 4:04 pm (UTC -4)
I too noticed Keith’s apparent lack of attention at times. I’ve noticed though that is far more prevalent when it’s the three of them in the booth. When Ronnie is absent, Keith tends to pay more attention. Not quite sure why that is. Maybe with Gary and Ronnie, he just knows it’s not as much on him.
And BTW, anyone catch the broadcast several weeks ago that was just Ron and Keith? All I have to say is Gary – please, please never leave…
wannybackstra
10/6/2009-4:40pm at 4:40 pm (UTC -4)
I find Keith entertaining because I value his opinions. The problem is that he doesn’t articulate them very well, or should I say in Keith terms, that he doesn’t articulate them “good.”
I’d prefer he stay than go because in a way his clown act (though as you all have pointed out is as much laziness as anything) has a strange charm to it (probably solely because a hero to many of us — some other schlub probably couldn’t get away with it) much in the same way Phil Rizzuto’s complete disinterest in the baseball game in front of him used to bring some charm to the Yanks’ booth.
gipperpdx
10/6/2009-6:07pm at 6:07 pm (UTC -4)
I agree he can wander during a dull game – but I love the Keithisms…the back and forth between he and Gary at that blowout in Colorado a year or two ago was priceless. Gary and Ronnie would be excellent, but the levity and fun Keith brings would be missed. Also, when he IS engaged, Keith is an excellent analyst, and is tough on modern players and the way the game is played now.
With the Mets leading the Rockies in the ninth inning by a score of 10 to 3, and the game reaching the three-hour mark, Hernandez had the following exchange with his broadcast partner, Gary Cohen:
Hernandez: Are you getting hungry?.
Cohen: No, actually, I had a pretty big dinner. You?
Hernandez: I’m starved.
Cohen: You’re always starved…and there’s ball four…you know, they have really good food here at the ball park.
Hernandez: No…
Cohen: Would you like me to go out and get you something.
Hernandez: I’m gonna head over to the steak house after this…
Cohen: Because they have really good fajitas in the back.
Hernandez: …and I’m gonna order a bottle of wine, with my daughter, and my wife, and I’m gonna savor it, after this debacle of a game.
Cohen: Are you saying you haven’t enjoyed the quality of play tonight.
Hernandez: No I have not…but I will enjoy the quality of the red wine.
Cohen: Would you like to have tonight’s winning pitcher pick it out for you.
Hernandez: No no, I can pick it out myself.
Cohen: Okay, I just didn’t know if your wine picking credentials were up to snuff…nothing and one to Jose Valentin…a red or a white?
Hernandez: Oh a red, a big, hearty, heavy, spicy red, maybe a red zinfandel…my stomach is growling I’m so hungry.
Cohen: Wow, that’s out there…0–1 to Valentin, who’s 1–for-4 on the night…now, are you thinking rib-eye, or…
Hernandez: No, I never eat heavy at night…I may drink heavy, but I never eat heavy at night.
Cohen: Okay, thanks for sharing…see you in the morning…1–2 to Valentin…maybe have some shrimp…the Mets looking to tack on, they lead in the ninth.
Hernandez: (Sigh) Wait, there’s nobody out? (Sigh).
Cohen: You just noticed that? Oh boy.
gipperpdx
10/6/2009-6:07pm at 6:07 pm (UTC -4)
(talking about Tony LaRussa)
Gary: … and he does all sorts of work for animal rights.
Keith: Animals have rights?!
Gary: Don’t let Tony hear you say that
(Ron laughs nervously)
Keith: What kind of country do we live in where animals have RIGHTS?
gipperpdx
10/6/2009-6:08pm at 6:08 pm (UTC -4)
(Commenting on a botched bunt attempt against the Mets in the 9th inning)
Keith: If he gets that down he can walk to first. You can get a lot of hits like that.
Gary: Then why don’t hitters do it more?
Keith: Because we’re men.
gipperpdx
10/6/2009-6:09pm at 6:09 pm (UTC -4)
“If he swung and missed Gary, then it’s obviously a strike”
gipperpdx
10/6/2009-6:09pm at 6:09 pm (UTC -4)
Keith: Did you notice that the moon is moving?
Gary: …It usually does.
gipperpdx
10/6/2009-6:19pm at 6:19 pm (UTC -4)
Gary: Well in 86, everyone hated you, you were the most hated team in the league
Keith: Well, we had Carter and Backman, how could they not hate us???
CaseStreet
10/6/2009-6:20pm at 6:20 pm (UTC -4)
gipper, starting a fan club?
gipperpdx
10/6/2009-6:25pm at 6:25 pm (UTC -4)
LOL…pretty sure Keith has one. After all, he’s Keith Hernandez!
gipperpdx
10/6/2009-6:31pm at 6:31 pm (UTC -4)
Keith: Smoltz hasn’t walked anybody neither…wait, Gary, neither or either?
Gary: “Either,” Keith
Keith: I always mess that up, my wife is always correcting me.
Gary: What, on your syntax?
Keith: Yup, that’s why I married her.
Gary: You married your wife because of her good grammar?
Keith: Yeah, why else?!?
gipperpdx
10/6/2009-6:34pm at 6:34 pm (UTC -4)
On military appreciation day, Mr. Met is in camouflage
Keith: Gotta get some war paint on the head though. Could be an easy target.
GravediggerHebner
10/6/2009-9:28pm at 9:28 pm (UTC -4)
Yes, many of the above quotes are quite entertaining, no doubt, and they help balance his ledger sheet. The other column on the ledger is unfortunately also chock full of things which I don’t have a resource for (I am assuming you got these Keithisms from “metsheads” to which I actually contributed one about Keith smoking 2 1/2 packs of cigarettes during a single game).
But we’ve all heard the things he says that no website is proud to list. You even included some hints of them in the anecdote in which he doesn’t know how many outs there are (despite the presence of earphones through which people could tell him if he cared to ask, or of his own scorecard, or the out # on the TV monitor in front of him, or on any of the many scoreboards in the ballpark).
Perhaps Keith is one of those people who are on some level a genius but who are distracted, and who when diagnosed with this and given drugs to correct it become staid and boring, and it is best that he simply be left alone. I can live with that.
In case I didn’t make it clear above, my #1 choice would be to keep him. He doesn’t need to be “sold” to me. I would be happiest if he simply stayed on and the current 3 man booth remained intact. Just reiterating that, if ever one of them must go, I would suffer the least if it were him.