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http://www.nysun.com/article/36253
Mets Surpass Yanks in the Broadcast Booth
Baseball
BY TIM MARCHMAN
July 18, 2006
While there may somewhere be someone who enjoys listening to Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay, I have yet to meet him or her.
I watch and listen to games from all over the country, minor league games included, and Kay is easily the most maddening play-by-play man in the country. There are some real homers working in the game right now, and some homers with some really annoying catchphrases, and then there's Kay. He's not only a homer, but seems to feel that the Yankees operate on a higher moral plane than their opponents and that he operates on a higher moral plane than many Yankees; he's not only a spouter of catchphrases, but of some of the most charmless you'll ever hear. ("See ya!")
Irritatingly, he'll quite often claim that someone like Bernie Williams feebly waving his glove at a routine fly ball or Derek Jeter, out of position yet again on a routine grounder, was victimized by a tough break despite the fact that all can see they weren't. More irritating is his general habit of treating anyone the Yanks happen to be playing like the Washington Generals. Kay being surprised at the numbers renowned stars like Carl Crawford are putting up despite the fact that they've been doing so for years is always good for a hoot.
All of this drowns out the great insights of Ken Singleton, Jim Kaat, and Al Leiter, and can make games on the YES Network quite excruciating. Admittedly, though, the solemn ads in which grainy shots of Ruth, Gehrig, and DiMaggio play with royal horn music in the background and Kay intoning words like "tradition" and "excellence" as a prelude to shilling Hormel Toxic Sludge Night at the Stadium make up for a lot.
I go on about this at some length not out of any particular disdain for Kay, but because in the ongoing story of the battle for psychic space in New York between the Yankees and Mets, presentation is all too often overlooked. Most people follow the teams most intently by television, so the quality of broadcasts has an enormous impact, not just on what people think about teams and specific players, but about the franchises more generally.
Someday Joe Torre, Mariano Rivera, and Jeter will move on, but those unintentionally hilarious advertisements using Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle to sell Magnetic Calendar Night promotions will endure, and everything they symbolize — the Yankees' (somewhat endearing) organizational blindness to their own pompousness and complete lack of a sense of humor, for starters — will endure, too, for both better and worse.
For the last few years, the dreariness of what the Mets were presenting on the field was matched by a peerlessly boring booth.You can criticize Michael Kay for a great deal, but he's no Fran Healy and no Ted Robinson.The Mets announcers' congeniality, caution, and blandness was a precise analogue to the dull brand of ball their team was playing. No one was ever more suited to call Todd Zeile atbats and crucial late-inning David Weathers appearances.
Had the Mets had the superb Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez in the booth all that while, would they have retained a bit more goodwill from their ever-angry fan base? I suspect so.
Clearly, the three are energized by an exciting team, but they also have more important attributes than vivaciousness — like honesty and insightfulness. A great deal of Hernandez's charm is in the fact that he sounds three sheets to the wind half the time, but a lot more is in his ability to spot subtle defensive shifts, break down pitching patterns, and point out mechanical flaws in swings without getting wonky.
Darling, similarly, can tell a story and has an easygoing charm about him, but can also explain the game's subtleties — what you can tell about a pitcher from the way he takes his warm-up throws, how umpires affect pitch selection, things like that. And Cohen, besides having a gift for knowing when to be quiet that most announcers with radio backgrounds lack, also has, simply, credibility. There's no shtick with him, nothing contrived, and you never feel as if he feels he's above the game or the players. That's just not always true of the competition.
We'll see how the SNY team will wear over the years — part of the problem with the YES crew is probably just overfamiliarity. Even legendary announcers like Vin Scully and Jon Miller have more than their share of blind spots, irritating tics, and stretches where they just don't sound like they care. In their first year on a new network with a great team to call, the Mets' triumvirate is naturally going to be at their best.
Cohen has been superb for years on the radio, though. Hernandez was wonderfully refreshing and cavalier in a limited role in the past, and is just living up to what he's already done in his expanded role. And while only about four people heard him due to arcane broadcast rules, Darling was excellent as a Nationals announcer. There's nothing in their backgrounds to suggest these three are going to calcify into catchphrase-spouting buffoons or cautious backslappers, and so long as they don't, the Mets are going to profit in this city in ways one can't quite calculate.
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This may belong in another thread, but I couldn't figure out which one.
Anyhow, who doesn't agree (other than Yankee fans)?
Later |
