The New York Mets welcomed their Kidcaster winner into the booth Tuesday night and the aspiring announcer promptly criticized the team.
Every year, SNY holds its annual Kidcaster Contest, which gives children between the ages of 8-12 the chance of winning an opportunity to join Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling in the booth. This year’s winner, Christopher, entered the booth with a bang, confidently calling out the Mets erratic hitting and hilariously citing the umpire’s inconsistent strike zone.
With Mets outfielder Abraham Almonte stepping to the plate against Cubs pitcher Jameson Taillon, Darling mentioned the importance of giving the pitch count.
One MLB team might deem this commentary too critical pic.twitter.com/eKboiQiNix
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 9, 2023
“Especially when you’re playing the Mets,” Christopher added. “You never know when they’re gonna start hitting.”
“You’d fit in this booth fine,” Darling said, laughing at Christopher’s willingness to note the Mets lack of consistency at the plate.
“This is the impact we have on people, Ronnie,” added Cohen, who along with Darling and Hernandez is known for giving honest assessments of what’s happening on the field.
Christopher might fit in the Mets’ booth just fine, but other teams, specifically the Baltimore Orioles, might not consider the kid enough of a homer for their broadcast crew. It’s fitting that in the same week where a kid offered a mild critique of the Mets from the SNY booth, Awful Announcing reported the Orioles removed play-by-play voice Kevin Brown from their broadcast booth for citing Baltimore’s recently improved record against the Tampa Bay Rays.
While neither broadcaster said anything damning, the point can definitely be made that calling out the Mets erratic hitting is harsher commentary than citing the Orioles improved record against the Rays. Amazingly, the Baltimore Orioles deemed the latter too hot for TV. But the Kidcaster shouldn’t worry, just as Cohen recently noted there are other clubs who would be happy to have Brown in their booth, there are similarly 29 other TV play-by-play jobs for Christopher to chase in Major League Baseball.
[SNY]
