Gary Cohen Hot Stove puts nearly $20,000 in library’s coffers

Gary Cohen Steve Cohen Keith Hernandez

Ron Darling Buck Showalter Jacob deGrom

By Scott Benjamin

RIDGEFIELD – Keith is having his number 17 retired on July 9

Ron went into the Mets Hall of Fame in 2021.

What about Gary?

Keith will have a bobble-head night on July 9 when they’ll honor him on the field. You get a bobble-head of Ron by purchasing a ticket for the August 13 game. But there also will be one for Gary on September 17.

Who are Gary, Keith and Ron?

The only people who don’t know we’re talking about Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling are the ones that have never heard a plane depart LaGuardia and fly over Citi Field.

Gary, Keith and Ron are about to move into the record books alongside Lindsay Nelson, Ralph Kiner and Bob Murphy, who even the under-20 generation probably know from the highly-acclaimed Mets Year in Review highlight films from the 1960s and 1970s that have been telecast on SNY.

Lindsay, Ralph, who lived in Greenwich, and Bob were with the franchise on Channel 9 and radio from the Mets inception in 1962 through 1978 – when Lindsay initially retired and then decided to take his vast collection of colorful sports coats to San Francisco to broadcast the Giants games. Ralph and Bob stayed with the Mets for eons. In fact, Gary worked with Bob on radio from 1989 through 2003. Ralph did occasional brief appearances on SNY in the early years of Gary Keith and Ron.

Gary, Keith and Ron are about to launch their 17th season on SNY, having been there since its inception. Gary started on Mets radio in 1989.

Unlike Keith or Ron, Gary never played on the diamond years ago at Bill Shea Stadium.

However, have Keith or Ron ever done Q & A on the same stage where Joan Rivers told sassy jokes . . . Ridgefield resident Dick Cavett interviewed Blythe Danner . . . Rascal Felix Cavaliere, a former Danbury resident, sang ‘Groovin’ . . . and Tommy Shondell performed ‘Crimson & Clover’?

That’s where Gary was on Saturday, February 5, as David Yaun, a former member of the Board of Directors of the Ridgefield Library, moderated “Hot Stove With Gary Cohen” at the Ridgefield Playhouse before more than 250 patrons, some wearing Mets jerseys and caps.

The library has reported that between admission, commemorative T-shirts, a raffle and silent auction, the event netted nearly $20,000 for its programs.

Cohen, who has lived in Ridgefield for about 22 years, first did the Hot Stove in 2017.

He said working with Darling and Hernandez is “a joy.”

“I can throw anything up in the air and they have a way of catching it,” Cohen remarked. “We don’t care if we step into each other’s areas of expertise.”

In describing the transition from late 2020 when Fred Wilpon and his family sold the Mets for a sports-record $2.4 billion to Greenwich hedge fund manager Steve Cohen, Gary Cohen said, “The Wilpons very much wanted to win. “They didn’t have the resources financially or otherwise to win consistently.”

He explained that Steve Cohen, the richest owner in major league baseball, “has the financial resources that he can apply to be a winner.”

“Does that guarantee success? Of course not,” Gary Cohen explained.

For example, he noted that over the recent years the California Angels, who are owned by another wealthy owner, former billboard king Arte Moreno, have spent “enormous amounts of money” to secure the best player in baseball over the recent years, Mike Trout, and the best player in baseball in 2021, Shohei Ohtani, yet “they’ve been unsuccessful.”

As for the Mets, Cohen said, “Out of 2019 it seemed all of the pieces were there for success. The 2020 season was a disaster and last season was a disappointment.”

He said the question is that after 2021 was “a testing ground about everyone in the organization”, do Steve Cohen, team President Sandy Alderson and General Manager Billy Eppler, “have the talent to get the systems in place to turn that around?”

Gary Cohen said that Eppler was “highly regarded” while working as Yankees’ assistant general manager about a decade ago before he became the general manager for the Angels.

He said that new manager Buck Showalter, who has had a string of successes in managing four different teams – the Yankees, Diamondbacks, Rangers and Orioles - over the last 30 years, “is the perfect manager for the job.”

“He knows the game, loves the game, knows the intricacies of it, sees things that other people don’t necessarily see,” Cohen exclaimed.

Will Showalter’s old-school style rankle the modern-day player?

Cohen recalled that similar concerns were voice 11 years ago when Terry Collins took the job, and he guided the team to its only World Series appearance since 2000.

“The knock on him was that he didn’t relate to the players well,” he remarked. “He was fantastic in his communication. I think Buck is at an age where he knows his limitations to control everything. He is operating in the here and now.”

“There are the pieces there now to certainly be a post-season team and maybe contend for a championship,” Cohen remarked.

As a result of acquiring four standout players shortly before the owners’ lockout on December 2, Cohen insisted that there are “a lot of pieces to square up” in the Mets starting lineup.

Starting pitcher Jacob deGrom, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, was injured much of 2021, but when he was healthy during the first half of the season, Cohen said that there probably hadn’t been as effective a starting pitcher since Sandy Koufax for the Dodgers in the mid-1960s.

Free agent Max Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young Award winner who finished last season with the Dodgers, will join deGrom at the top of the rotation.

Cohen said that the Mets also face challenges in the bullpen, after their top reliever from 2021, Aaron Loup, signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks in the off-season.

“Right now, they don’t have anyone to replace him,” he commented.

In the field, the Mets acquired three standouts shortly before the December 2 owners lock out – third baseman Eduardo Escobar, and outfielders Starling Marte and Mark Canha.

Cohen said the signing of the three new position players, all of whom are in their 30s, “goes against the grain” of the recent years when the team has invested in younger players.

Along with Robinson Cano, a one-time all-star with the Yankees, returning after a one-year performance enhanced-related suspension, some infield positions are unsettled.

Which raises questions about two budding stars.

“Does Jeff McNeil fit in? Does J.D. Davis fit in?” said Cohen.

McNeil, a second baseman who has been used elsewhere in the infield and the outfield, was leading the National League in batting average for much of the 2019 season and might have prevailed if it had not been for a hamstring injury. He finished that season at .318. He is the only Mets player since David Wright to bat at least .300 in three consecutive seasons.

Davis, a third baseman, hit .307 in 2019 and knocked in 97 runs.

On another topic, Cohen predicted that how the Mets develop their analytics system “will be one of the fascinating things to keep an eye on.”

“Analytics in some organizations has become the be-all, end-all,” he said.

Cohen said that analytics can be a “helpful tool” but the best system is using “eyeballs as well as a spread sheet.”

He explained that with analytics: “How you take them, crunch them and then put them in an adjustable form, and that’s harder than it seems.”

Cohen said there may be data that when a certain pitcher is at 2-2 in the count that 73 percent of the time he throws a change-up. But it is difficult for a hitter to compute all the potential data that could apply while he is at the plate.

He noted that Hall of Famer Yogi Berra, who nearly managed the Mets to the world championship in 1973, once said that, “You can’t hit and think at the same time.”

“It is easier for pitchers [to use analytics] because they are pro-active. Hitting is reactive, “Cohen explained. “You react to what you see.”

He noted that the traditional method is to look for the fastball and adjust for the breaking ball.

Cohen commented, “Looking for the breaking ball, it is hard to adjust to the fastball.”

Regarding the lockout, he said, “I don’t know what is going to happen.”

“I don’t think that anyone wants to lose a season,” he remarked. “I think they will come to their senses at some point.”

Cohen said broadcasting baseball is a challenge because the ball is usually in play for about seven to eight minutes during a three and a half hour telecast and there are a bevy of anecdotes and statistics that can be utilized. He said he spends mornings scouring the Internet before arriving at the ballpark

“Everything that happens today has a connection to what happened yesterday, and three years ago, and 20 years ago and maybe 50 years ago,” he explained. “There are so many stories to tell,” he said.

Theo Epstein - the former Red Sox and Cubs executive who now works for the commissioner's office – recently told Baseball Digest that there is a "consensus" that baseball needs "to find a way to create more frequent action, more balls in play, and more opportunities for players to show their incredible athleticism in the field."

Cohen agreed, saying, “Something has to be done about the pace of play.”

Regarding a pitch clock, which has been utilized in the low minor leagues, he added, “I think it’s time has come.”

Cohen said that he Is “really glad” he doesn’t have a vote in the

Baseball Hall of Fame balloting during a time when players from the steroids era of the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s are now on the ballot.

“It is the most complicated era for the Hall of Fame voters,” he said, noting that the hall has “a morals clause.”

“The biggest problem is not with the guys we know cheated,” Cohen explained. It’s all the guys that we don’t know cheated. You can’t tell who cheated and who didn’t.”

“My observation is that a majority of the players cheated.,” he declared.” “That doesn’t excuse them. They took money, bread, at bats and innings away from those that didn’t cheat.”

Resources:

Baseball Digest, November-December, 2021

https://www.mlb.com/mets/news/...