Jerry Seinfeld will call a Mets game with for mer man-crush Keith Hernandez — 18 years after they paired for a classic “Seinfeld” episode.
Seinfeld, a diehard Mets fan, will join former Amazin’s star Hernandez, now an SNY analyst, and play-by-play man Gary Cohen in the booth for at least three innings during next Wednesday’s Mets-Tigers game.
I left the typo in the first sentence because it makes it look like “merman crush,” and that’s an entirely different thing — albeit, who knows, maybe appropriate when Keith Hernandez is involved.
ABC was on to something when they tapped a comedian for the Monday Night Football booth in 2000. Problem was, they picked the wrong comedian. Dennis Miller’s material is esoteric and tightly scripted, so it almost always felt forced when he interjected his jokes into otherwise interesting football games.
It’s a shame, then, that the experiment was such a notable failure that no one has ever thought to revisit it. A funny, improvisational comedian would probably add more to the enjoyment of a televised sporting event than 90% of the analysts employed by networks. Who would you rather hear dissect a baseball game: Tim McCarver or Bill Cosby?
I don’t think the addition of Jerry Seinfeld to SNY’s booth for a few innings represents anything more than the combination of this network’s effort to keep Mets broadcasts interesting and Seinfeld’s own vanity. But at the risk of sounding like a shill, I’m excited for it.
Tedquarters 
How long until Seinfeld breaks out the “rooting for laundry” bit? First inning?
Hope this is as hilarious as it can be. Now an inning with both Chris Rock and Seinfeld. That would be gold. But only as long as Rock was barred from shilling for Grown-Ups.
Rock would be great. Is he a baseball fan?
Get on that, Ted.
Yeah, he’s a Mets fan. He hates Jeff Kent, which is good, but he also doubted Carlos Beltran, which is bad.
Oh, that pains me. He has to have rethought things since, though. We’ve all had our blind spots.
Problem is, so much comedy these days is ribald and over-the-top that it’s probably very hard to find a solid comedian for the booth. That being said, why not just keep what we have? I like the solid baseball analysis peppered with anecdotes and witty observations punctuated with “mexisms” that we have going.
If you’ve ever heard Jerry Seinfeld on the radio–he did some truly memorable shows with Steve Somers–he’s great on the fly, and knows his Mets. This will be awesome. I’m glad this isn’t for Tuesday’s game, since I’ll be there.
Seinfeld will be on again with Somers on Monday.
I love Jerry, but with all this media exposure, he must be plugging something.
rabble rabble SHILL!! rabble rabble
I remember a game in the 90s where Seinfeld went into the booth. He was joking about Hundley, because Hundley used to unbutton his jersey all the way down to the navel, and Seinfeld was wondering if he was stripping or something.
It wasn’t unusual for the Mets during the Kiner/McCarver Days to have a celebrity guest up in the booth. McCarver LOVED the Lights of NYC. Broadway, good food, the ratings. I recall that a then “hot commodity,” Rita Rudner, left him in stitches when she called an few innings.
Buddy Hackett (drunk?) was on with the duo once. He said he grew up in Koufax’s neighborhood and claimed that Koufax was born illigitimate. (I know nothing about Koufax’s private life, nor do I care.) However, I could feel the nervousness of this claim by Hackett permeate the entire broadcast.
You know who would be great at this?
Drew Carey.
(50 days after the conversation is over…)
You know who was great at this? Jon Lovitz. He did this during a Chicago game last year, and he was fantastic. They brought him in for a half-inning, and they couldn’t get him out of the booth (nor did they want to).
That’s because everything Jon Lovitz does is fantastic.