SNY booth turning 10

ATLANTA — Looking for a reminder that life races by at an alarming speed? Here’s one: On Monday, Gary Cohen, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez will call their 10th Mets home opener together.

That’s right, SNY has completed its first decade. On Sunday, the acclaimed booth trio devoted a few minutes to reflection. First question: How long can fans expect the three broadcasters to remain together?

“Ten years from now, I’ll be 71,” Hernandez said. “Hopefully, I’ll be doing the same thing. At an older age, I could scale back a little bit, but I certainly want to do this for another 10 years, minimum.”

“I’ll be here as long as they’ll have me,” said Cohen, 56. “If it ever stopped being fun, then that’s different. But I’ve been doing this 27 years with the Mets, and it hasn’t stopped being fun yet.”

And Darling, 54, who has added to his load in recent years with TBS and MLB Network jobs, is enjoying the life more than he expected.

“If you had asked me five years ago if I’d be in this job another 10 years, I’d have said absolutely not,” he said. “But now, I certainly see it as a possibility. After you do something 10 years with people you like and respect, with the friendships you make, you could see doing it another 10 years.”

What would each be doing with his life, had SNY never existed? Cohen’s answer is simple — he would still be broadcasting Mets games on radio.

“I’m a radio guy doing TV,” he says. “That’s how my brain works.”

It is possible that neither Darling nor Hernandez would be involved in baseball, if not for TV. They certainly wouldn’t be coaching, as many fans have wondered over the years. Hernandez dabbled, but lasted just half a summer at extended spring training in Port St. Lucie.

“Extended spring training is the salt mines,” he said. “It just wasn’t for me, that’s all there was to it.

“I just really didn’t want to go back to the minor leagues, and the buses again.

“My dream was to go to graduate school, teach, do something academic,” Darling said. “I just don’t have the patience it takes to coach young men.”

Instead, he found a vocation that fits, as have his two longtime partners.

“If for some reason we weren’t here, we’d still be watching baseball games,” Cohen said. “And talking to ourselves.”