Not everyone loved Pete Alonso dropping a blatant f-bomb during a recent postgame interview, especially his manager Buck Showalter.
Last week, Alonso mashed a walk-off home run against the Tampa Bay Rays and was so overwhelmed with excitement that he couldn’t censor himself. For years, Alonso has pushed the mantra “LFGM,” but last week, he bypassed the acronym for the real thing on live TV. While being interviewed on SNY and over the Citi Field PA System, the All-Star first basemen said “Let’s f*cking go Mets!” drawing the ire of virgin ears everywhere.
Showalter was on ESPN New York’s The Michael Kay Show Tuesday afternoon and during the interview, Don La Greca asked where Alonso ranks among the greats he’s managed. As he lauded the player and person that Alonso is, Showalter surprisingly brought up the overt f-bomb without prompt.
Buck Showalter tells @TMKSESPN he was bothered by Pete Alonso’s f-bomb pic.twitter.com/UlL5U1dCTX
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 23, 2023
“I get to hear some things he says in the dugout and some things he shouldn’t say outside the dugout here and there, although that’s a story for another day, even though I’m sure it will be here shortly,” Showalter said, welcoming questions on the topic.
And since Showalter went there on his own, Kay justly dug a little deeper to ask the Mets manager if the f-bomb bothered him.
“Of course it did,” Showalter admitted. “So did it to his mother. I learned my lesson a long time ago. My mother could read lips and boy, that Sunday drive home after a day game when I would always holler and put the phone on speaker, she would tell me, and I always felt horrible. Yeah, it’s not a good idea and I don’t think you’ll see it happen again. I hope not.”
After Showalter said he doesn’t think we’ll see it happen again, Kay surmised the Mets manager addressed the f-bomb with Alonso, which he believed was a good thing.
“Let’s face it, everybody on this call, with the exception of me has used that word,” Showalter said in jest after he already confessed to having used the word. “It’s just the venue you put it in, and people are always listening here and it’s just unfortunate because I don’t want somebody’s day at the ballpark to be less than it could be because of something someone heard that shouldn’t hear it.”
Kay, however, went on to make the wild claim that he has never used the word in his life. And Kay wasn’t just claiming the word isn’t in his vocabulary, the ESPN New York radio host and Yankees play-by-play voice says he literally has not uttered it and attributes his f-bomb aversion to being forced to eat soap after saying “suck.” Kay similarly spoke out against f-bombs earlier this year after LeBron James dropped one on the night he set the NBA’s all-time scoring record.
It’s not surprising that Showalter didn’t like Alonso’s use of the word in front of Mets fans and on live TV last week. What is surprising, however, is the fact that Showalter took it upon himself to bring the topic up, alienating his superstar player on a New York radio show.
