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Newsday, Melville, N.Y., Sports Watch Column: SNY Must Work Out the Kinks

Posted on: Tuesday, 4 April 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Neil Best, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

Apr. 4--The Mets did their part yesterday for their new regional sports network, giving SportsNet New York an entertaining Opening Day victory.

Alas, at least three important things were missing from SNY's regular-season debut:

The first was DirecTV, the satellite TV company with about 1 million area customers. After weeks of optimism, SNY did not reach a deal with DirecTV for the opener, but did so just after it ended.

The second thing was most of the third inning. A blown fuse cut power to the production truck and SNY ran promos, public-service ads and highlights from 1986, all without explanation.

The third thing was the most peculiar. After months of building toward the unveiling of the new Mets and their new network, SNY offered a maddeningly truncated postgame show.

The game ended at about 4:05 p.m. Twenty-five minutes later, studio hosts Matt Yallof and Ron Darling were saying good-bye, followed by a taped "Kids Clubhouse" show.

The only news from the locker room was a brief clip of manager Willie Randolph.

Huh? Where were the rest of Randolph's comments? Where were interviews with players in the locker room?

An SNY spokesman attributed the brief Randolph remarks to logistical issues and promised in the future locker room interviews will be part of the post-game.

The game coverage itself mostly was solid, as you would expect from the likes of director Bill Webb and announcers Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez.

Cohen made a smooth transition from radio, even if, as he told SportsWatch afterward, "Putting on a suit and tie was definitely different for me." He seems to have chemistry with Hernandez in a pairing that can handle both serious analysis and humor.

When Hernandez noted Mr. Met in the stands and said the mascot is a favorite of Tom Seaver's, Cohen shot back, "Watch out, he'll get a big head." (Presumably he meant Mr. Met, not Seaver.)

The biggest quibble here was that Cohen and Hernandez were so busy lauding the Mets' defense they downplayed the apparent breaks for the home team on the game's two biggest plays. (Memo to whoever chose David Wright's home run as the play of the game: Not!)

Hernandez did note Paul Lo Duca dropped the ball in tagging out Alfonso Soriano at home in the eighth inning and explained what the Nationals' on-deck batter did wrong. But the primary focus was on the two throws and Lo Duca's block of home plate.

On the game's final play, it appeared Anderson Hernandez made a phantom tag on Jose Vidro at second base, but again the focus was on the defense and no mention was made of whether there was a tag.

"I think it was one of those plays where the ball beat him, and 99 times out of a hundred if the ball beats him he's going to get called out," Cohen said after the game.

Why not say that on the telecast? Said Cohen: "At that point the game is over; I'm not even sure we saw a replay at that point." Cohen added that the Nationals didn't argue either play.

Having two pros like Cohen and Hernandez on the game is important, given the youth and mostly non-New York backgrounds of SNY's news team.

(On the pregame, Julie Donaldson noshed with GM Omar Minaya at a Corona deli and came off as New York as corned beef on white bread, with mayo.)

In fairness, the new channel deserves time to develop. It was just nice at last to see a regular-season game on SNY, after all that weird filler programming, from boating to snowboarding.

It was baseball. It was a start.

Strange but true:

SNY has head in the game

Officially, the people at SportsNet New York call him "Sportshead." (The more creative names are not for public consumption, unfortunately.)

That would be the fellow who has appeared in four advertisements for the regional sports network, and who has inspired strong feelings among viewers.

That's OK. You're right. He's silly. But he has attracted attention, which is a big part of the point.

Steve Raab, SNY's vice president of marketing, said the plan was to "break through the clutter" in a crowded market, and also to say something about the channel.

"It's important to us that viewers not see us as just another regional sports network," Raab said.

The most pointed message is in the slightly creepy spot in which Sportshead's Mets-fan girlfriend finds him painting Yankees pinstripes on the toenails of another woman.

We get it: SNY covers all teams, not just the Mets, which partly own the network.

Will there be more ads, now that SNY finally is a widely distributed reality?

"We'll see," Raab said. "Figuratively, we'll see what legs he's got."

Just wondering:

DirecTV aboard; is Dish left out?

SNY did reach a carriage deal with DirecTV on Opening Day, but not in time for the opening game. It happened in late afternoon, after the Mets- Nationals game yesterday.

The area's biggest satellite TV company is expected to put SNY on channel 625 sometime tomorrow, in time for the Mets' next game, which will give SNY carriage in 90 percent of its distribution area.

Next on the agenda is another satellite company, Dish Network.

It has been widely assumed Dish will be a no-go because it has tried to hold the line on programming costs and never has carried the Yankees' 4-year-old YES Network.

An industry source insisted, though, that Dish is not necessarily a lost cause. Talks are ongoing and both sides are interested in trying to strike a deal.

Best's bets:

Echoes of Cohen in radio booth

If it weren't for the fact the TV and radio were on the same time, we would have sworn yesterday that Gary Cohen was doing both Mets broadcasts simultaneously.

That would have been a better story.

Turned out Cohen was on TV and Tom McCarthy, his successor, was on WFAN with Howie Rose. It was just that McCarthy sounds spookily, eerily, uncannily similar to Cohen.

Mostly, that's a good thing. Cohen was a solid radio man with major-league pipes and a professional, shtick-free approach. So is McCarthy.

Still, that similarity . . . It's just plain weird.

Of course, your voice sounds different between your ears than it does to the rest of the world, which presumably explains Cohen's take on his vocal twin:

"I've listened to Tom for a long time, and I just don't hear it," he said. "I guess it's all in the ear of the beholder. I think Tom is going to do a wonderful job. If people think we sound similar, I guess that is a compliment to both of us."

Contact Neil Best | e-mail: nbest@newsday.com

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Source: Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

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