Keith Hernandez
League NetworksLocal NetworksMLBBy Sam Neumann on

The New York Mets have particularly had a rough go of things lately, but it also hasn’t been easy for the team’s primary local broadcaster—SportsNet New York (SNY)—especially during the latest road trip to Houston.

During the Mets’ 10-8 loss to the Astros on Wednesday afternoon, SNY experienced countless technical difficulties. 

“We would like to apologize for some of the technical difficulties we’ve been suffering through today,” Mets play-by-play voice Gary Cohen said during the top of the eighth inning. “You know it’s 100-plus in Houston and sometimes equipment does not cooperate.”

Well, right in the middle of Cohen apologizing on behalf of the network, the screen turned red during a Fracnscio Lindor at-bat.

“You saw the red, it came up red on my screen,” Cohen said.

“Red means hot,” Keith Hernandez said.

It sure does, Keith.

And while that was a little glimpse of laughter during an otherwise painful-to-watch baseball game, it was no laughing matter for John DeMarsico—the game director for the Mets’ regional sports network. DeMarsico expressed his dismay with the camera angles on fly balls to right field earlier in the series.

However, that wasn’t DeMarsico’s biggest gripe with the difficulties in Houston. Unbeknownst to him, rather than showing the game, MLB.TV was showing a camera feed of SNY’s broadcast booth.

And as a Mets fan residing in South Carolina, who was, unfortunately, watching Wednesday’s game, I can confirm that this did indeed happen. Sometimes the camera will pan into the SNY booth, but rarely do you ever see a feed of the announcers, who have no idea that they’re on camera unless otherwise instructed. It was a weird moment doing a weird game, and the MLB.TV feed showed Hernandez yawning during one of the team’s longer games of the season. Not that’s that out of the ordinary, but he clearly had no idea he was on camera.

Needless to say, DeMarsico was not pleased. And he has every right to be frustrated. It certainly puts Cohen and Hernandez in an uncomfortable position and they were fortunate that the camera only panned on them for around two minutes. So, if you were out-of-market, you were left confused about what the SNY broadcast was doing. And really, it wasn’t SNY’s fault.

“This series couldn’t end soon enough,” DeMarsico wrote.

In the past, Houston has been a house of horrors for opposing teams. Let’s hope that’s not the case for the opposing team’s broadcasts now too.

[Awful Announcing on Twitter] Image from Josh Green

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann