A customary feature of the SNY broadcast is the “game break,” a brief 15 to 20 second pause in the action where Gary Cohen throws to a studio anchor who gives the latest out-of-town scores and news. During Thursday’s Mets game against the San Francisco Giants, Cohen threw to Sal Licata, who proceeded to show highlights of the Yankees game against the Detroit Tigers. Unbeknownst to Cohen, his microphone remained on through the game feed being presented on the new SNY mobile app, and about ten seconds in the “game break,” viewers heard Cohen say: “Why are we showing Yankee highlights?”
On Thursday, The Michael Kay Show on 98.7 ESPN New York spoke about Cohen’s remark, and rather than simply assuming the statement came out of his fandom for the Mets, a team he grew up rooting for, co-host Michael Kay believed the statement came more out of a cognizance towards the business of live television.
“The Yankees are on opposite you,” said Kay, who serves as the play-by-play voice of the Yankees on the YES Network. “Now, you’re altering everyone to the fact that the Yankees are on right now and [that] it’s a close game. You might be losing some viewers because the Met game – I wouldn’t say it was a blowout – but it seemed like it was at hand.”
Don La Greca disagreed.
“I’m a big fan of Gary. He’s terrific,” said La Greca. “He was Met Boy. If I had to guess, that’s Gary saying, ‘I’m a Met guy. Met broadcast. Why are we showing Yankee highlights?’”
While La Greca believes part of the blame for Cohen’s remark going over-the-air was a lapse by the producers at SNY, mistakes are expected to happen especially with the nature of a live broadcast. Hot mic incidents have cost broadcasters their jobs and future broadcasting opportunities, including former Cincinnati Reds play-by-play announcer Thom Brennaman, who was cited by Kay as someone who may never recover from his incident.
With the potential for these incidents to occur to anyone not remaining aware of the power the microphone yields to the person behind it, Kay offered a salient piece of advice for aspiring broadcasters looking to make a career in sports media.
“If you have a mic near your face, you have to believe that it’s on, even if it’s not, even if it’s not,” said Kay. “Number one: There could be somebody in the truck that hates your guts and would like nothing better than to expose you. Number two: There are technical sanfus when they think they’ve turned down the mic and it’s not. Don’t say anything when you have a mic near your face!”
La Greca knows that if Kay was heard on a Yankees broadcast questioning why his network was showing highlights from a Mets game, he would receive much negative publicity and draw the chagrin of Mets fans – likely to an extreme degree.
“Oh my goodness,” said Kay in response to La Greca’s assertion. “Met fans would be waiting to lynch me…. They might start another paper just to write about me.”
