Gary, Keith, and Ron Are Still the Best Booth in Baseball 

Heading into their 18th year calling games together, the longtime New York Mets broadcast team of Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez, and Ron Darling act more like brothers than co-workers—complete with some good-natured teasing. 

“Since this is GQ, you should ask Gary about his tie collection,” says Hernandez, a wry smile forming underneath his signature mustache. 

Cohen rolls his eyes a bit and nods. “It’s a little-known fact that I never wear the same tie twice in a season,” he explains. “I own several hundred now, and probably 40 or 50 are orange and blue.”

Hernandez chuckles. “Sorry, I like to go off on tangents,” he says. “Gary knows all about that.” 

Good-natured, wide-ranging asides like this one are precisely what make a Mets broadcast with Gary, Keith, and Ron—or GKR, as their fans have dubbed them—must-watch TV in New York. They’ll expertly dissect a Francisco Lindor at-bat—while simultaneously debating things like tie colors, ice cream flavors, and whether the phrase ‘stroke out’ is an appropriate baseball term. Hernandez and Darling —both cornerstones of the Mets’ 1986 World Series-winning team—bring kookiness and sharp analysis, respectively, while Cohen acts as the straight man navigating the ship. (Though it seems like he’s a little quicker with each passing year to burst into laughter at something Keith has said.)

This season, they’ll become the longest running three-man booth in Mets history. As the years have rolled by, they’ve gained a fair bit of national acclaim, with pundits calling them the best booth in baseball and fans of other teams (including the one in the Bronx) lamenting that they don’t have a GKR of their own. 

Cohen insists they haven’t let the praise get to their heads. 

“It’s always been important not to listen to the noise, the positives or the negatives,” he says. “The only voice I listen to, more than any other, is our producer’s.” 

Darling chimes in: “Our producer, Gregg Picker, doesn’t mind telling us if we were horseshit the night before.” 

And then, of course, there’s Hadji, Hernandez’s Bengal cat, who has become a frequent topic of conversation and a fan favorite in his own right. 

“Hadji just turned 20 in October, so he’s a Libra,” Hernandez says. “He’s about 95 percent blind and deaf as a drum, but I just got him from the vet and his blood work was outstanding.” 

With Opening Day upon us, and the Mets coming off a rollercoaster offseason, the broadcasters sat down with GQ to preview the year ahead. 

This marks 18 seasons together for you three. What do you remember about your very first broadcast?

Gary Cohen: I remember a lot of fear. You know, we were all pretty new to this. I had been on radio my entire life—not a whole lot of television. Keith had dabbled over the previous years but had never embraced this as a full-time job, and Ronnie had done just one season in Washington, without a whole lot of direction. We were all thrown into the deep water together, and I remember from the beginning really having to lean on each other and lean on [late SNY director] Bill Webb. I feel as though we were in a dark room together and kind of held hands in order to find our way. 

And we’re still relying on each other today. I think that goes a long way toward explaining why it’s worked so well—because we’ve been mutually dependent on each other from day one.  

Do you try to watch other broadcast teams to size up the competition? 

Ron Darling: It’s very hard to watch baseball when you have a job in baseball, but if it’s Sunday night and I hear David Cone make a great point, I’ll text Cone about it. I know some networks are trying new things—some of that stuff we did on SNY in our first five years, like interviews with players in the game. Our producer gets so bored so easily, he’s always pushing us to try new things, so we try to be cutting edge with the rest of the game. 

Keith Hernandez: When I watch other broadcasters, I pay attention to the opening segment. Gary is laughing, because he knows I do not like the opens, but I’ve gotten better at them. It’s just hard to look directly at the camera when you’re first starting out. You’ve got a director telling you: “Just pretend it’s your girlfriend.” But it’s a friggin’ camera! 

It’s been quite the offseason for the Mets, punctuated by the departure of Jacob deGrom. Gary, you were a huge Mets fan back when they traded Tom Seaver in 1977. How does that situation compare to this one? 

GC: Other than the fact that Tom Seaver and Jacob deGrom are two generational talents, the situations are not analogous. Seaver was the franchise. His trade led to six years of darkness for the Mets. 

With deGrom, he’s a brilliant talent who has not been able to stay on the field enough to make him worth the money that the Rangers gave him. I wish him all the success in the world—I hope he makes 32 starts every year and wins the American League Cy Young. But the Mets are in a completely different mode right now, with ownership that replaced him with a future Hall of Famer who just had one of the greatest seasons a pitcher has ever had. 

That would be Justin Verlander. Ronnie, you’ve covered him a lot during his playoff runs. How does he compare to deGrom?

RD: Certainly a different pitching style and definitely a different persona. Just like Max Scherzer, Verlander brings a great deal of toughness to the mound. We’re watching a guy who’s had a Hall-of-Fame career, who had Tommy John surgery late in life, and he’s kind of got a brand-new arm now. Usually at his age—he just turned 40—it’s the twilight of your career. But what if it’s not? When I was a kid, there used to be a show called The Six Million Dollar Man, and they posed the question: “What if you rebuilt him?” Well, they’ve rebuilt him, and it’s gonna be fun to see how far he can take it. 

The Diaz injury, meanwhile, was a brutal loss. Did you watch much of the World Baseball Classic, Keith, and how should Mets fans feel about that tournament in the context of the injury? 

KH: Well, I didn’t watch much of it, to be honest, but it had a fairytale ending, with Ohtani pitching to Trout. 

In my opinion, for pitchers to throw right away in highly competitive games, it risks injury, and the Mets have obviously now lost Diaz, although his injury was not game-related, but from celebrating. But the WBC is here to stay—fans and players love it—and I’m fine with it. 

I think this was just a particularly bad year to host the WBC because of all the new MLB rules, like the pitch clock, which the WBC didn’t use. Players have needed spring training to get acclimated to these new rules, so the guys just getting back from the WBC are at a disadvantage. 

Speaking of the pitch clock: How do you see it impacting the game? Are you a fan? 

RD: If you had asked me this 18 years ago, I would’ve said, “Don’t touch this game. It’s perfect.” But baseball got so far out of whack—it got so smart and so boring all at the same time. The NFL, NHL, and other leagues change rules all the time to make the game more exciting, and I commend baseball for taking a stand. 

KH: I feel, personally, that today’s players are going to love it. For an everyday player, standing out there for three-and-a-half, sometimes four hours—nothing is more exhausting than when you’ve got a wild pitcher on the mound or simply no action at all. That wears you out more than if you go four-for-four with four triples. That extra hour of not standing around will make them that much stronger in August and September for the stretch run.

And as broadcasters, we’ll love it because we won’t have to talk so much. Our jaws get tired.

Are there any negative impacts the rules might have?

GC: I’m fully on board with the pitch clock, but one caveat is that we do not know yet how it’s going to feel when you get into the seventh or eighth innings of close games, and particularly in the postseason. That’s where the tension of the anticipation is often a good thing and heightens your appreciation for the moment. So to play the game at a faster tempo in those spots—it’ll be interesting to see how that feels.

RD: As a point of reference, look at the Ohtani/Trout at-bat in the WBC: none of those pitches would have come in on time if they had been using the pitch clock.

Keith, last year you infamously critiqued the Phillies, and fans were not*__ __*pleased.

KH: Hey, the truth hurts. 

Did Philly’s run to the World Series change your opinion on them at all?

KH: They were not a good, fundamentally sound club when I made that comment, but they went out and made moves. Kudos to their front office. I was actually glad to see them turn it around, and when they got to the World Series, I was rooting for them. They were fun to watch, and when a team has a second half like that, it’s infectious. 

The Mets are coming off a 101-win season last year, so expectations are high even with the Diaz injury. How does this Mets team compare to the others you’ve covered in your 18 years?

RD: March hyperbole is always very strong in New York! We’ve been through it before, but this is a whole different talent level that they’re putting out there now. Whether it’s the pitching staff or Alonso, Lindor, McNeil—they really have a superior talent level, and I think they’ve done a nice job improving their bench. They’ve always had smart players, but they weren’t as deep as they are now, and that comes from having a payroll that you can afford to keep, sign, or get rid of players you don’t feel will make your roster better.

KH: The best Mets team we’ve covered is… what do we always say, Gary, the 2006 team? But this one is a very talented team. It’s not young; it was put together to win. Remember, when Steve Cohen bought the team, he said he wanted to win a championship within five years. Well now we’re in, what, his third or fourth year?