SOME AMAZIN’ CANDOR
Gary, Keith & Ron are on fire early for SNY
The Mets had stolen a 3-2 win from Miami in Thursday’s home opener. On SNY’s postgame show, Gary Apple was asking the studio analysts, who just witnessed Michael Conforto turning his elbow into a pitch that should have been strike three but resulted in the winning run scoring, what they thought of the controversial sequence.
Anthony Recker, the former catcher who often wears a confused look, was just that.
“I’m very confused,” Recker told those tuning in to the postgame looking for clarity. “It seems that Gary (Cohen), Keith (Hernandez) and Ron (Darling) wanted the game to go on.”
Not quite. They wanted to get it right.
As Conforto moved toward first base before being mobbed by his teammates, replays of him leaning into the pitch kept rolling. The trio of broadcasters quickly pieced together the evidence. They determined home plate umpire Ron Kulpa should have called Conforto out on strikes, which the ump later confirmed to a pool reporter.
Their analysis was fluid and definitive. It wasn’t a matter of Cohen, Hernandez and Darling wanting the game to continue, which would have either delayed or derailed the Mets from sudden victory. And no one should have been a tiny bit surprised by the route they took. Darling, Hernandez and Cohen have been shooting straight (with only a few misfires) during their 16 years together.
Indeed, this was business as usual. Let others, like Recker, overtly wave the pom-poms. That’s his shtick (along with his dancing eyebrows). Recker does have his attributes, like bringing a catchers-eye-view to his analysis. Let’s just say, he might want to pay closer attention to the stylings of the three Mets voices and stash his collection of Mr. Mets heads before he hits the air.
As impressive as Cohen, Heranandez and Darling’s Thursday afternoon performance was, their Tuesday night presentation was unique. These cats displayed their range when, working Mets-Phillies remotely from their Citi Field booth, Hernandez received an on-air call that brought the play-by-play to a halt. He reacted with words we have never heard during a baseball telecast.
“I’ve got a slight emergency at home,” Hernandez said.
“Can we help in any way?” Cohen asked.
On the other end of the phone was “somebody who was supposed to feed my cat (Hadji).” The cat caretaker apparently got the key jammed in the lock, which had Hernandez wondering if he would be able to get in his house when he returned home to a starving cat. Cohen briefly put the story on hold: “And wait a sec, Dom (Smith) lifts one out to left, and it’s hit pretty well, back goes
Joyce, here!”
Calamity Keith’s cat-lock-doorfeeder story continued and eventually came to a conclusion — sort of. It provided a hilarious and natural, real-time, real-life story. And in these troubled times it is even more appreciated. Of course, it wasn’t even close to be unanimously loved. On Twitter MikeyfromtheBX @mikeyprimo said: Love these guys, but they drift too much. Got a contender, focus on the game today….This isn’t fill the void time, its broadcast a possible ws team time.”
His point is measured and not off-the-wall. Nonetheless, it ignores the importance of a quirky kind of entertainment when it’s used judiciously. It also ignores reality: Hernandez, Cohen, and Darling have so much intrinsic value to SNY, the suits let them go their own way.
Or as the late great basketball coach/philosopher Al McGuire once said: “They have flown beyond near the wall, and it’s out of the trees.”
SAY HIGH
In an interview with SiriusXM’s Howard Stern, Christopher (Mad Dog) Russo said he occasionally gets high swallowing edibles (gummies, not brownies). “I like to veg out,” Doggie told the King of All Media.
Thinking out loud, Russo said he would consider eating a gummy “before a show” to see what it would be like doing three hours of radio under the influence. C’mon man! We’ve been following Dog’s career for many moons and it’s hard to believe he hasn’t already done a show while high on something.
Like Tuesday, Russo went nuts over 40,000 fans being allowed to attend Monday’s Blue Jays-Rangers tilt in Arlington Texas. “If there’s no (coronavirus) outbreak in Arlington, why can’t they open up all the ballparks,” Russo shrieked. Maybe mind-altering substances have Russo convinced that he is America’s Immunologist.
And there’s no way anyone can convince us Russo was not getting stoned when he worked with Mike (Sports Pope) Francesa on WFAN. How else could Dog get through all those shows while being verbally bullied by the All-Knowing One?
INSTANT CLASSIC
Gonzaga and UCLA delivered more than the goods during their overtime Final Four chiller nightcap in Indy Saturday night. And anyone lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time found more gold.
On Westwood One’s radio postgame, Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar were on the air discussing their Bruins 93-90 OT loss on Jalen Suggs 40-foot buzzer-beater. Sure, they were disappointed by the way it went down for their alma mater.
Yet what came through was the energy and excitement in their voices.
These two legends were enthralled over the furious pace of the game and knowing they had just watched a classic, especially Abdul-Jabbar who rarely shows excitement in public. Wonderful spot.
SLAMMING SAM
Talk about kicking a guy in the tuchis on the way out.
That’s exactly what Norman Julius Esiason did to Sam Darnold on Friday’s FAN morning show.
Esiason revealed the Jets had to hire a media coach to work with Darnold. NJE inferred the former Jets quarterback, and now Carolina Panther, was incapable of handling notebooks, cameras and Valley of the Stupid Gasbags without a tutor. Esiason didn’t specify how long Darnold worked with the media coach nor name the tutor.
Esiason’s revelation leads to the following question: If NJE knew about this, why didn’t he report it when Darnold was still a member of the Jets? Perhaps because doing so would have led to more uncomfortable questions: Like why is Sam spending valuable time learning to deal with the media when he should be spending all of his time learning how to play quarterback?
AROUND THE DIAL
If Aaron Rodgers can be so smooth hosting “Jeopardy”, imagine how easily he would handle an NFL game analyst job? The “Jeopardy” gig is harder but it pays big bucks. The late Alex Trebek was making $10 million per . ... Esiason has been verbally gnawing at Marcus Stroman ever since he became a Met. Very strange. Why all the animosity for the pitcher? ... Did you know YES has a new app? You don’t? Maybe that’s why YES has its app logo constantly appearing during Yankee games . ... Like Mr. Recker, we’re confused. How can both ESPN-98.7 and WFAN, in promos, claim to have the most listened to sports talk shows in afternoon drive? One station is bending the truth.