I’ll let you get back to warming up your television sets after a winter of presumed disuse in anticipation of 2013’s first Spring Training telecast on SNY in a moment. I just wanted to let you know Gary Cohen, the greatest baseball announcer working today (or any other day), is profiled beautifully by Greg Hanlon of Capital New York. Read it here [1]…and not just to learn what blogs Gary goes to when he and his cablecast colleagues aren’t making the Mets the best show in town.
This starts Gary Cohen’s 25th year as Mets play-by-play announcer, 17 years exclusive to radio, eight all of a sudden on TV. That’s institution territory, and I don’t necessarily mean what describing in detail a quarter-century’s worth of Mets baseball might put a person in. By the time the first 25 years of the franchise were outta here, we knew we had been treated to the aural trip of a lifetime with Ralph Kiner and Bob Murphy, the only other announcers in Mets history with longer tenures behind in-game microphones. How lucky are we, if we experienced the Original Three — the sublime Lindsey Nelson checked out after the first 17 seasons — to have picked up the journey with Gary Cohen in 1989, let alone Howie Rose (in our ears since 1987, announcing full-time since 1996), not to mention their respective current partners?
If you missed Ralph, Bob and Lindsey, or only got a taste of Ralph and Bob or, for that matter, never took in the full McCarver when that was something to behold, I feel bad for you. But I don’t feel terrible, because we’re living in another golden age of Mets broadcasting right now. We haven’t had that many on the field. We’ve been pretty damn lucky over the air.
Happy exhibition baseball to one and all…and a Happiest Recap [2], too!