For longtime New York Mets fans, there are few personalities quite as essential to their experience with the franchise than Ron Darling. The pitcher spent eight seasons with the club and was a member of the 1986 World Series Champions alongside Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter, Daryl Strawberry, and others. After bouncing around a few networks, he joined SportsNet New York (SNY) in 2006 as a color commentator and studio analyst for the Mets alongside Gary Cohen and former teammate Hernandez. In the years since, he’s been a mainstay of team broadcasts and even threw out the first pitch during Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS.
News broke this past Saturday that Darling would be taking a leave of absence from the broadcast booth to deal with a health issue. He then announced during Saturday’s Mets-Braves game that he would be undergoing surgery to deal with a “large mass in my chest.”
Statement from SNY pic.twitter.com/dm7mZI9i4k
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) April 14, 2019
That surgery happened at some point in the last day or so and, according to boothmates Cohen and Hernandez, it was successful and Darling is now recovering.
Gary and Keith send their best wishes to Ron Darling, who underwent a successful procedure. pic.twitter.com/W102MDS61V
— SNY (@SNYtv) April 17, 2019
Great news for Darling and his family. He had previously said that he “should be back on air talking baseball sometime next month,” but of course it remains to be seen when Darling will return, as he’ll likely want to spend some time recovering with his family. Darling is also an analyst for the TBS baseball coverage, but their regular-season coverage doesn’t start until after the All-Star Break, so chances are he’ll be back in time for that as well.
[SNY]
