For the second time in just over three years, New York Mets’ television broadcasters Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling have come out on top in a survey ranking the best booths in baseball. In 2017, The Guardian named the trio (best known as GKR) as tops in the sport and on Tuesday, the results of a nationwide survey were published by The Athletic.
The Athletic recently asked its readers to share their opinions on their teams local television’s broadcast. Factors such as play-by-play, color analyst, field reporting, pre- and postgame shows and technical quality were all considered. Readers rated each area on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the best.
After over 6000 votes were tallied, the Mets tandem came out victorious, narrowly beating the San Francisco Giants’ trio of Duane Kuiper, Jon Miller (play-by-play) and Mike Krukow (analyst).
“Broadcasting matters more than people think,” a reader wrote. “People will watch a bad team as long as there is a great play-by-play man taking us through the pain.”
The Mets have a great play-by-play man. Gary Cohen is one of the reasons the Mets tandem won. He scored a near perfect 4.96 on the survey which ranked him the top overall broadcaster. Cohen has been the anchor of the Mets booth since the inception of their current TV home, SNY, in 2006. The 2018 baseball season marked Cohen’s 30th year calling New York Mets baseball. Prior to joining SNY, Cohen was a member of the Mets’ radio team for 17 seasons.
Cohen’s versatility behind the microphone is well-known in the New York region as well as nationally. He has called college basketball games aplenty including in the NCAA tournament. He has been the radio voice of Seton Hall basketball since 2003. Cohen also is a fill-in for New York Rangers hockey.
Said one survey respondent, “If Gary Cohen isn’t No. 1 on the MLB play-by-play list, then this entire survey and article should be disbarred from The Athletic.”
Keith Hernandez joined SNY in 2006 as the network’s game analyst. He currently does about 100 games per year. Prior to joining SNY, Hernandez served as a Mets game analyst for MSG Networks. In addition to his role on Mets telecasts at MSG, Hernandez also served as a baseball analyst for the network’s Major League Baseball post-season playoff coverage. Hernandez has won three Emmy Awards for best “Sports Analyst” for his work on SNY in 2009, 2012, and 2015.
Ron Darling joined SNY in 2006 as a game analyst. He also broadcasts about 100 games per year. In addition to his work at SNY, Darling is an off-season studio analyst for The MLB Network and a game analyst for Turner Sports’ MLB regular season and postseason coverage. Like Hernandez, Darling has won three Emmy Awards for his work, in 2006, 2011 and 2017.
The three seem to strike a perfect chord of what fans want: Knowledge of the game, history of the team, camaraderie in the booth and enough wit sprinkled in to make it all work. They mesh perfectly with Cohen never dominating either of his analysts.
Many survey takers summarized it like this: Hernandez (hitters) and Darling (pitchers) are best when it comes to explaining “the mindsets of their respective positions, and Gary ties it all together seamlessly.”
Finally, one reader put the cherry on things by commenting “Being a Mets fan is a tough lot in life, but one thing we’ve got going for us is Gary, Keith and Ron. It’s a golden age for us.”
Golden, indeed.
