It wasn’t an intentional throwback, but technical difficulties briefly set SNY’s New York Mets broadcast back several decades Monday night.
As SNY returned from commercial in the third inning of the Mets series opener against the Arizona Diamondbacks, they did so without video. And while there was audio, it sounded like Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez were calling the game from under water.
The video outage lasted for just over a minute, with Cohen acknowledging the technical issues after everything went back to normal.
“I want to apologize for some of the technical issues we had a moment ago. Keith said it was not his fault.” – Gary Cohen pic.twitter.com/KUIIc8PZcX
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 6, 2025
“I want to apologize for some of the technical issues we had a moment ago,” Cohen said before jokingly absolving his broadcast partner of any blame. “Keith said it was not his fault.”
“What happened?” Hernandez asked, seemingly unaware that there was any issue. “Did I miss it?”
“I don’t know,” Cohen said. “Let’s just say, as we said at the outset, it’s a challenging night. But we’re up to the task. We have a good team around us.”
The technical issues came just one week after it was reported SNY has started the process of exploring a sale. SNY is currently owned by Sterling Enterprises, which is controlled by the Wilpon and Katz families, who sold the Mets to Steve Cohen in 2020. But considering this outage only lasted one minute, it doesn’t seem like Wilpon failed to make a utility payment.
For Mets fans like myself, who grew up listening to Gary Cohen alongside Bob Murphy, and later Howie Rose, on WFAN 660 radio, there was an element of nostalgia to hearing the now longtime TV broadcaster sound like he was on the AM dial again. Cohen hasn’t called a game on the radio since the 2006 playoff run, when he controversially reentered the Mets booth for two innings each broadcast.
Monday night’s technical issues may not have been as cool if it was for an entire game, but for a minute, it was a fun throwback.
