Posted on by Shannon Shark @metspolice

Rank the Mets announcers

Osh41 and I were emailing one day about Steve Zabriskie and before we knew it we started doing a “who is/was better than who” list of the Mets announcers.

Neither of us really remember Lindsey Nelson so we haven’t included him.  I remember his jackets, I remember him doing games, but I was too young to decide if he was “good.”

I also didn’t watch many of Sean Kimmerling’s telecasts (had babies and little time for Mets games) so I also haven’t included him.

So, here’s one fat guy’s list, my apologies if I forgot anyone.

1.  Bob Murphy

2.  Howie Rose

3.  Old Ralph Kiner (age 70 and up, with wisdom and grace and great old stories)

4.  Keith Hernandez.  Blatantly honest.

5.  Tim McCarver.  It is trendy to hate him now, but when he first came on the scene his insights were new and interesting.

6.  Gary Cohen

7.  Ron Darling

8.  Steve Zabriskie

9.  Gary Thorne.   Spent the summer of 1986 in cable-less Queens listening to him.  I wasn’t cheap, Queens wasn’t wired for cable until 1987.   Smart business to sign a long term deal with Sportschannel when people in Queens can’t see the games.

10.  Eddie Coleman

11.  Wayne Hagin

12.  Tom Seaver.   The Franchise wasn’t that good at first, when he finally started letting loose he stopped doing Mets games.

13.  The younger bad Ralph Kiner.  The malapropisms weren’t cute.

14.  Rusty Staub.   Sportschannel/FSNY was so bad that they dreagged Howie’s game down.

15.  Todd Kalas.  Was that a real voice or is sort of like a certain son of another famous announcer who is doing an impression of his dad?

16.  Fran LINE DRIVE BASE HIT Healy.   Who did he have pictures of?

17.   Lorn Brown/Steve Albert.   I think that booth is universally recognized as the worst.

My favorite booth:   McCarver/Kiner/Zabriskie, even though the current TV booth is stronger, and Howie is better than all of them.  Maybe Howie can be the next Vin Scully and just sit there by himself.

One man’s list – feel encouraged to argue.

21 Replies to “Rank the Mets announcers”

  1. Love the post idea.

    Few things. First of all, you forgot Ted Robinson. But then, most of us already have.

    But more importantly, I’m wondering if this is a list of technically “who is best” or if it’s “hey, who’s your favorite.” I love old Ralph, sure, and I loved Murph, but neither was a better announcer than Gary Cohen, who should be #1 on this list, #1 on current announcers on TV, and #1 on a list of all-time radio announcers that’s not allowed to have immortals (Scully, Harwell, et al). From a strictly “who is the best announcer” standpoint, a TV booth with current Gary and 80’s McCarver would be unmatched. From an entertainment standpoint, it’s hard to top what they have now. And Gary and Howie on radio? Well, that was a two-year tease.

  2. yeah there’s no way keith and ralph come in before gary and ron. i love listening to ralph too, but murph, howie and gary should go 1-2-3 on this list. and i really believe ron is the best analyst the mets have ever had.

  3. Gary Cohen may be skilled but he drives me crazy with “The question is……..”. Listen to how many times a night he starts a thought with “The question is…….”. Drives me crazy. Not to be Negative Ned completeley, Howie Rose is my favorite. I like the kid from Queens gimmick and the Honeymooners jokes.

  5. You really should do this by the teamed matchups because you would probably get much different results.
    As for my team, (OK so I’m old)…
    Nelson, Kiner and Murphy have been and will always be the team I miss the most. Nelson was a straight play by play guy. Murph too. They used to switch off on doing the radio so no matter what you tuned into those WERE the voices of the Mets. Kiner really did nothing more than talk about the old timers and relate old baseball stories. Analysis then was not what it became in the 70’s after MNF started doing the three person booth (back then you only heard two of the guys at a time the other would do the radio feed.!)

    McCarver I would say was the best analyst we ever had but the guys they paired him with were just awful!

    There hasn’t been a team as good since. But there are a few notable for being exceptional.
    #1 McCarver – He’s still one of the best analysts in the game.
    #2 Gary Cohen is probably the best Play by Play guy we have had since Nelson. And he may be better as he does have some analyst insight Nelson never even bothered to display even if he had it.

    The only guy who has even been the complete package is Murphy. He could carry an entire broadcast on his own (and often did!)

    The worst of the bunch has to be a tie between Lorne “he’s in the hole” Brown and Fran Healy!

    I love the current team but wish Hernandez did more games. He is not as strong a broadcaster as Darling is (often absent and forgetting he is on the air and staying silent) but when he speaks it usually is a golden nugget of info!

  6. From those I’ve heard:

    1. Bob Murphy
    2. Gary Cohen
    3. Howie Rose
    4. Ron Darling
    5. Tim McCarver (he was actually good with the Mets, after he left, not so much)
    6. Gary Thorne
    7. Tom McCarthy
    8. Keith Hernandez
    9. Eddie Coleman
    10. Dave O’Brien (short tenure but good TV play-by-play man on WPIX)
    11. Tom Seaver
    12. Ted Robinson (much better on TV than radio)
    13. Ralph Kiner
    14. Wayne Hagin

  8. Murphy, Cohen and Thorne are my top 3, and I’d probably put McCarver in there, too, because he was good as a Met. Didn’t they sort of show him the door because they thought he was too critical? Then he goes to the Yankees and starts to dumb it down for everyone and not be controversial (for the most part; Joe Torre comments aside). I think I’d have Howie fifth to round it out. And I had no problem with Ted Robinson, but I don’t remember his style or anything. I just think he’s a good voice for play-by-play.

    1. Yeah Tim was sort of not-renewed. The team gets sensitive.

      Remember the Todd Kalas post game radio shoe that was designed to keep Howie from coming on until half an hour after the Mets broadcasts?

  9. I have to say that I did like Ted Robinson on TV. Didn’t hear much of him on radio. I believe he grew up a Mets fan in Queens around the same time that Howie Rose and Gary Cohen did, and I did like having 3 play-by-play men who grew up as fans of the club (though Ted isn’t a fan now like Howie & Gary).

    I also liked Gary Thorne & Tim McCarver together (this is before both became annoying). Thorne was, and still is, horrible on radio (some announcers just don’t get the difference, and he’s one of them).

    As a team, I have to say that Gary, Keith, and Ron are the best duos and trio the Mets have ever had, and Howie Rose and Gary Cohen were the two most solid play-by-play men the Mets have ever had.

    I tend not to consider the reporters like Kevin Burkhardt or Matt Loughlin or the fill-in guys like Todd Kalas and Ed Coleman in the same way that I consider the main corps of announcers.

  10. One clarification: Lorn Brown and Steve Albert never worked together. Thank God. Albert was with the team from 1979-1981 and Brown was teamed with Kiner for the 1982 season on Channel 9. Much as I love and respect “Old Ralph Kiner,” the Lorn Brown/Young(er) Kiner combo was by far the worst broadcast team in Mets history.

  11. My list:

    1) Gary Cohen and Howie Rose (a tie, while my greatest sentimental attachment is to Murph, Gary and Howie are the best. They are so knowledgeable, so adept at using the English language, and they are complete and total nerdy Mets fans)
    2) Bob Murphy (a voice that will always be in my head)
    3) Ralph Kiner
    4) Ron Darling, profoundly insightful
    5) Keith Hernandez, also often profoundly insightful, and he’s Keith Hernandez
    6) Tim McCarver when we was with the Mets, particularly at the beginning, not the way he is now
    7) Art Shamsky, why is it that nobody remembers him as an announcer? It must be because nobody was listening to the Mets then. I found him hilariously irreverent and interesting.
    8) Lindsey Nelson, for memory’s sake. Even as a kid, I didn’t enjoy him as much as I enjoyed Murphy and Kiner. He was very smooth and professional and he had a funny, almost carnival-style voice. Very competent, not terrifically analytical.
    9) Tom Seaver. I know his weaknesses, but he could also often give you some superb insights into the game. And he was always my favorite player, so it felt like a kind of privilege to listen to him.
    10)Tom McCarthy. Good while we had him.
    11) Steve Albert. Marv’s brother. He was actually pretty good.
    12) Gary Thorne.
    13) Eddie Coleman. I really like Eddie. I like hearing him with Howie.
    14) Rusty Staub. Rusty wasn’t that good, but he was Rusty.
    15) Wayne Hagin. I feel badly about not liking him very much, because he sounds as if he’s a very nice guy. But his perpetually amazed voice and his lack of NY irony and Metsy lyricisim bothers me. It sounds as if he and Howie are broadcasting from different universes.
    16) Fran Healy. Poor Fran Healy. Did his job. Wasn’t very good. Nobody really liked him.

  12. I grew up and went to school to be in a Mets broadcast booth, that things did not work out is another story (was and would still be good enough but life happens). Lindsay Nelson, Bob Murphy & Ralph Kiner were great…but as the total package, there was NO better Mets broadcast team than Howie Rose & Gary Cohen. They were radio guys doing radio and they were Mets encyclopedias. They were us. They are great Mets broadcasters that grew up Mets’ fans just like all of us.

    After Nelson left & Murphy went strictly radio, Kiner went downhill, just like the team. When the Mets hired McCarver to be in the booth, Kiner got reinterested in his job and remains a great listen to this day. I especially love the TV broadcasts when they had hitter (Kiner/Hernandez) & pitcher (Seaver/Darling) dynamic. To this day, they still hate the other side.

    As for the radio, I also loved Gary Thorne, and Uncle Bob…

    I know this is not a strict ranking, but that is hard to do. I can take or leave Hagin, hated Lorn Brown, & Fran Healy. I liked Staub, and O’Brien & Robinson were solid pros, just did not work out for them & team. If it had, Robinson (Robinson was first SNY choice, but he did not want to give up US Open) would be on SNY & Rose/Cohen wouls still be on the radio.

  13. Can we rank the girl with the David Wright home run call? She deserves to touch them all.

  15. I may be biased but my list begins and ends with Bob Murphy. Oh while I’m at it Steve Albert was bad,very bad.Hey guys remember Steve LaMar? He was pretty bad too.

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