The New York Mets might have the best TV booth in baseball, but when the games matter most in the playoffs, fans are left without Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez, and Ron Darling.
Fans are used to hearing their favorite announcers for most of the 162-game regular season schedule. But if they’re lucky enough to see their favorite team advance to the postseason, they’re stuck listening to national announcers. Those national broadcasts might do a fine job, but announcers who are seeing a team for the first time in the playoffs will never compare to the booths who are there with a team and a fanbase through the ups and downs of an entire 162-game season. And as much as it might pain fans to watch a playoff game with national announcers, it pains Gary Cohen even more.
Cohen, Hernandez, and Darling joined the latest episode of Jimmy Traina’s SI Media podcast to preview the MLB season with Opening Day scheduled for this week. And during the interview, Traina asked Hernandez and Cohen about having to sit out the postseason once their regular-season responsibilities with SNY are over.
Darling continues into the postseason, calling playoff games for TBS, while Hernandez predictably said he’s happy to pass the job off to national announcers. But for Cohen, not getting to call the Mets during their postseason runs is the hardest part of his TV job.
“It’s by far the worst part of the job,” Cohen told Traina. “When I made the move from radio, where I got to do all the postseason games, it was the thing my wife and I talked about the most because I knew what I was getting into and I knew that was part of the deal. But it never stops being painful. I have a real rough time with it every year when the Mets are in the postseason, and I know Michael Kay and all the other people who are in a similar situation feel the same way. But it’s part of the gig and it’s the thing we have to live with, but it’s not fun.”
Cohen went from being the Mets radio announcer to their TV voice in 2006, the team’s first season on SNY. That year, the Mets went on their first playoff run since 2000, and Cohen controversially returned to the radio broadcast for three innings every game, which is why you hear his voice on the infamous Endy Chavez catch during Game 7 of the NLCS.
Since then, Cohen has refrained from rejoining Howie Rose in the radio booth. In 2024, Cohen remained involved by joining SNY’s pre- and postgame studio coverage of their playoff games. But it’s not the same.
Recently, there has been a growing sentiment that MLB should find a way of letting fans hear their local broadcasters during the playoffs. Michael Kay and Bob Costas have both suggested giving fans the option of listening to national or local announcers over the same video feed, with the same commercials airing on both. It would appease fans while keeping the network from losing any revenue.
While it seems doable, networks will be reluctant to give up the chance to have their announcers heard and platformed during the season’s biggest moments. Which means Cohen’s workload is likely to remain light in October, even when the Mets are in the playoffs.