Mets should keep cutting to Steve Gelbs in blowout games

Watching a New York Mets game on television wouldn’t be the most enjoyable experience it is without the trio of Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez, and Ron Darling’s commentary. Their chemistry is unmatched, being named the best broadcast booth trio in baseball last year in a survey conducted by The Athletic. The trio has been together for over 15 years and makes even the most uninteresting games entertaining. Already earlier this year the trio made headlines on April 7th when “Keith Hernandez’s cat emergency” took attention away from the Mets first home run of the season.

Keith had hired a cat sitter to feed his cat Hadji for the night. In the middle of Dominic Smith’s at-bat, Hernandez’s phone rang and his ringtone was all anyone could hear while watching the game on TV. Hernandez fessed up and went on to explain that he was having an emergency at home. Naturally, as any decent human would, Gary Cohen if everything was alright. Keith followed by saying that the door was jammed because the cat sitter had broken the key in the lock and Keith “wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to get into his house tonight.” Meanwhile, Dominic Smith had just hit the Mets first home run of the season, a fourth-inning solo shot to give the Mets a 1-0 lead against the Phillies. All that seemed to be heard though on the broadcast was Gary and Ron’s laughter at Keith’s overhyped “emergency”.

The trio extends their good humor to Mets sideline reporter Steve Gelbs. Gelbs, who is probably at least 25 years younger than any Gary, Keith, or Ron gets treated like a little brother by the trio, often being teased in lighthearted but hilarious ways. Note: There are many hilarious Steve Gelbs moments/interviews on YouTube that are certainly worth checking out.

The Mets booth Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez, Ron Darling, and Steve Gelbs are the best broadcasting foursome in baseball.

In the Mets loss to the Chicago Cubs on April 21st, the commentator trio openly accepted that they were going to have trouble coming up with things to talk about in what was an already 10 run lead by the Cubs at the end of the sixth inning. Gary Cohen even went as far as to say that “this game is broken.” To fill the void they looked no further than Steve Gelbs, who (he is very proud of this) has finally been given his own broadcast booth in Citi field this season. Gelbs often jokes that he is continually making progress towards getting physically closer to Gary Cohen, who silently shakes his head at the somewhat creepily phrased remark.

Gelbs goes on to give his in-game report. This is a highly insightful report: When Jeff McNeil began as a minor leaguer, he and his wife Tatiana agreed to keep him motivated as a ballplayer. The agreement was that for every year it took McNeil to make the major leagues, he would be able to get one less dog. A totally odd proposition and report from Gelbs sparked Gary Cohen to ask follow-up questions to which Gelbs had no response. Gary lightheartedly criticized the “holes” in Gelb’s reporting and it made for a hilarious moment between the four. Luckily an at-bat or two later, McNeil’s wife Tatiana came to the rescue on Twitter, answering Gary’s questions, including saying that the agreement was that McNeil would start with being able to get eight dogs and then one less for each year it took him to reach the MLB. McNeil and wife Tatiana currently have one dog together, named Willow, and it is incredibly cute.

Gelbs, who also has gotten to know many Mets players well from his line of work multiple times has done his live pregame report from near the dugout only to be showered with bubble gum and sunflower seeds from most recently Jacob deGrom.

Want your voice heard? Join the Rising Apple team!

Write for us!

For diehard Mets fans watching every game, even the non-competitive ones, we can truly be grateful that we have undeniably the best guys in the business in the baseball broadcast booth. Gary, Keith, Ron, and Steve Gelbs make all moments on SNY’s Mets broadcast a fun time.