Engineer with Ripken-like streak to throw out 1st pitch
The first road trip Chris Majkowski ever took with the Mets was to St. Louis. Coming off a 7:40 p.m. start time on getaway day, the plane landed between 2 and 3 in the morning. At the team hotel, Majkowski, then a newly minted engineer for WFAN, found himself in an elevator with manager Jeff Torborg. It was the first time the two had met.
“So,” Majkowski recalled Torborg asking, “what made you wanna join the circus?”
Majkowski isn’t sure how he answered. But 25 years later, it’s clear the circus was the right choice. In that time, he has missed one game.
Majkowski will throw out the first pitch before Wednesday’s game, public recognition for a largely private job. Ac- cording to Mets radio play-by-play man Howie Rose, the effort was spearheaded by a group including WOR station director Tom Cuddy, Mets PR head Jay Horwitz and senior broadcasting director Lorraine Hamilton. For his part, the Long Island native would rather stay in the background. He’s straightforward and workmanlike. More than 4,000 straight games is no big deal, Majkowski said, because all he really did was show up for work.
Asked what he’s looking forward to most about Wednesday, Majkowski replied without hesitation: “It being over.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I — certainly — I appreciate it,” Majkowski said. “But Howie keeps telling me, ‘Don’t bounce it. Don’t bounce it.’ The last thing you wanna do is end up on SportsCenter ‘Not Top 10’ because you’re the guy who did the spike with the throw or whatever it is, airmailed it all the way to the backstop.”
Engineering a broadcast is behind-the-scenes by design. Majkowski gathers factoids for the pregame show, sets up equipment in the broadcast booth, makes sure ad copy is read when it needs to be and deals with any technical issues, among other responsibilities. He’s a buff of baseball history and movies, and he rooted for the Mets growing up. He’s made for this job.
“He handles it,” Rose said. “That’s a phrase. He’ll handle it better than everybody I’ve ever met in the broadcast business.”
Majkowski lucked into the job. Going into the 1993 season, the Mets’ longtime engineer left. A new guy — not Majkowski — was hired. Majkowski filled in for one exhibition game.
“He was such an innocuous presence,” Gary Cohen, then in the booth alongside Bob Murphy, said. “I don’t think he said one word that entire day.”
That new guy didn’t work out. A month into the season, Majkowski was brought in as an emergency reliever.
That game he missed? It was for his sister’s wedding. Majkowski tried to bargain his way into going to the ballpark, then trying to make the reception. His mother refused.
“August 7 of ’93,” Majkowski recalls. “Actually it was a doubleheader against the Pirates.”
His recall? Dead on.