This Week In SNY

by James Kannengieser on May 17, 2011 10:00 AM EDT

Let's start this week's recap with some Ralph Kiner.

Sunday, May 8th

The legendary Hall of Famer made a Sunday visit to the booth:

The man is 88 years-old and still sharp as a razor. Some Kiner gems:

Ralph Kiner: You've gotta change the script, I don't like the script.
Gary Cohen: What's wrong with the script?
Ralph Kiner: Well the script should be the Mets win every day.
Ralph Kiner: When I played, when [managers] talked to you, it was ‘you're going back to the minors son'.
Ralph Kiner: [Loney] had some terrible swings in the first two games of this series. Makes you say ‘this guy is a major league hitter?' Maybe he has the answer of how to get a base hit off a knuckleballer -- have a terrible swing.
Ralph Kiner: Ike was #5 in slugging percentage in baseball when this game started. Slugging is compiled by total bases. A single is one, a double is two, a triple is three and a home run is four. And then divided by official at-bats.
Gary Cohen: What's the new one now?
Ralph Kiner: It's on base percentage and slugging -- OPS.
Keith Hernandez: Is that a little overkill?
Ralph Kiner: And that's a really good stat because it tells the truth about a batter's real proficiency.

Ralph Kiner: True SABR?

Tuesday, May 10th

Ike Davis performed the Heimlich Maneuver on David Wright:

Seriously though, no more collisions please. Communicate.

How is it acceptable that Barney the purple dinosaur stands behind home plate distracting visiting pitchers at Coors Field?:

A fan greeted Jason Giambi with a mile high salute. Fine by me:

Thursday, May 12th

An obnoxious fan in Colorado took to screaming "swing!" during every pitch to Carlos Beltran. It dominated the broadcast for a bit. Here is our offender blowing a snot rocket/screaming at our man Voltron:

Gary Cohen: When there's a small crowd and there's a heckler you can certainly hear him.

Beltran shut the guy up by doing this:

That's home run number two of three on the day. Screw the haterz. May 12th, 2011 -- Carlos Beltran Day.

Friday, May 13th

Let's check in with Kevin! Kevin spoke with an astronaut Friday night in Houston because why the hell not?

Topics covered included:

Antimatter
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer
Unlocking secrets of the universe

Basically the top three topics on every Met fan's mind. This has been this week's installment of "Let's Check In With Kevin!"

The now-famous Spiderman fan escape occurred Friday night in the bottom of the ninth inning. In case you haven't seen it, here it is:

The Angels were so impressed by this one display of athleticism that they offered the fan a 5-year, $50 million contract. Gary Cohen was not impressed:

Gary Cohen: Well this doesn't do anybody any good. It's 3-and-2, 2 out, last of the 9th, tying run at the plate, and the tension gets broken by some fool.

Respectfully disagree, Gary.

That's all for now. Send any tips or suggestions to ThisWeekInSNY@gmail.com.

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Comments

The run

This was my first time being able to see it. Wow, that dude was pretty quick and definitely seems like he planned that one out. Either that or he can really think quickly. What’s his grission rating?

by CCE718 on May 17, 2011 10:18 AM EDT reply actions

Over 9000?

Irrational Mets fan known for memorable ranting and raving, when things inevitably go wrong.

by TKFJ on May 17, 2011 11:05 AM EDT up reply actions

Just amazing.

Grission rating five Ecksteins.

Dear friends, please temporarily stop your footsteps To our website Walk
around A look at Maybe you’ll find happiness in your sight shopping heaven and earth You’ll find our price is more suitable for you.

by Coolpapabell on May 17, 2011 11:12 AM EDT up reply actions

I've done similar stuff ... on weed

by bones_boy on May 17, 2011 6:26 PM EDT up reply actions

Is that a regular segment with Kiner?

If not it certainly should be one. That dude is amazing

A deadline has a wonderful way of concentrating the mind.-Professor James Moriarty

by Blame-everyone-else on May 17, 2011 11:21 AM EDT reply actions

It's pretty incredible to me that an 88 year old man

can wrap his mind around and not only accept but actually like a stat like OPS (which isn’t all that advanced, by the way…you’re just taking two common stats and adding them together), while two guys in their 50’s, one a Columbia graduate, seem to have a closed mind towards anything that isn’t RBIz, RUNZ and Batting Average.

Keith I can understand because he’s a former player and I guess I can say the same with Ron as well, but Gary? Come on, man…you’re supposed to be the baseball geek. Unfortunately he’s a baseball geek in the Tim Kurkjian way, where he knows a bunch of interesting, yet useless baseball history facts of the top of his head.

Chamption of the R.A. Dickey Face contest and "Cromulent Photoshopper Extraordinaire" of Amazin' Avenue!

by Steve Schreiber on May 17, 2011 11:38 AM EDT reply actions

I don't know, I find Keith the more shocking

Gary doesn’t outright criticize (this stat). I just cannot imagine how a guy who played the game wouldn’t realize, as Kiner does, the usefulness of a slugging stat. It’s impossible to imagine, in fact, which means it’s sheer Joe Morgan petulance about any change at all taking place from the days when he was on top. It’s a really pathetic way to be.

by SuperT on May 17, 2011 11:53 AM EDT up reply actions

I see what you're saying there.

It just seems like it’s less likely that the ballplayers end up “getting it”, whether they are retired or even active (aside from Brian Bannister, how many ballplayers have sided publicly with any sort of advanced stats?). That’s why I wouldn’t be shocked that Keith isn’t interested. But Gary you’d think would have some interest at least, being as big a fan as he is, not to mention that I’m sure he’s a smart guy, being Ivy league educated and all. I’m mainly thinking back to his vehement rants against BABIP last year and things like that. That’s what confuses me about him.

Chamption of the R.A. Dickey Face contest and "Cromulent Photoshopper Extraordinaire" of Amazin' Avenue!

by Steve Schreiber on May 17, 2011 1:05 PM EDT up reply actions

Yeeeah

it doesn’t take an Ivy League education to “understand” “advanced” stats. (And Ron has an Ivy degree, too — or at least went to an Ivy.) The notion that ballplayers are just too slow to embrace “advanced” stats is kind of ridiculous (and a smidgen elitist.) Maybe they don’t have the education required to quickly make sense of some of the statistical methods behind the stats, but then again, the same could probably be said of a lot of “Ivy league educated” folks.

by tmu on May 17, 2011 1:12 PM EDT up reply actions

You see, now you're just putting words in my mouth.

I never said they were “too slow” as you put it. I said they’re less likely to end up “getting it” which is to say that they typically just aren’t interested in them because “they played the game”. They “don’t get” what we see in terms of how advanced statistics can be useful.

And I understand it doesn’t take an Ivy League education to “understand” the statistics (I’m not Ivy League educated and I get them). My point was that you’d think somebody who is more educated like Gary or Ron, would be more open to different ideas. I’m not sure if Ron is open to stats or not, he really doesn’t seem to comment but Gary has fought them before (namely his few arguments against BABIP).

Chamption of the R.A. Dickey Face contest and "Cromulent Photoshopper Extraordinaire" of Amazin' Avenue!

by Steve Schreiber on May 17, 2011 1:30 PM EDT up reply actions

I recall a businessy-type article

some years ago, examining the way innovation happens. The conclusion was that it will almost always come from people new to a field (not necessarily young), because they don’t already believe they have the answers. We get into patterns of thinking that we can’t even see that we’re in. So I guess you could put Gary in nearly the same category as the players in this respect, given that he’s followed baseball so closely all his life.

Makes Kiner all the more awesome.

by SuperT on May 17, 2011 1:52 PM EDT up reply actions

Time for me to change fields, I guess.

Next: ballet. I’ll introduce the “barrel roll.”

by tmu on May 17, 2011 1:57 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

hey, you never know.

by SuperT on May 17, 2011 2:21 PM EDT up reply actions

Fine, fine

Don’t want to put words in your mouth, and I see what you were saying. Apologies.

by tmu on May 17, 2011 1:56 PM EDT up reply actions

No worries!

Chamption of the R.A. Dickey Face contest and "Cromulent Photoshopper Extraordinaire" of Amazin' Avenue!

by Steve Schreiber on May 17, 2011 2:09 PM EDT up reply actions

yea really, how bout Ralphie!!!

It’s obviously common sense. The crazy thing is, a guy like Gary Cohen kind of knows some of the “advanced metrics” are very sound and way better than “traditional” stats, but just can’t get themselves to say it out loud.

"It don't make you a bad person" - Ron Bennington

by Pauly C on May 17, 2011 11:55 AM EDT up reply actions

So Gary is a Tim Kurkjian wanna be?

Now, kids, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep; in giant blender.

by meigs1414 on May 17, 2011 12:25 PM EDT up reply actions

Ronnie comes off like he's coming around on saber stuff but bites his tongue from time to time.

Gary seems to be the “These stats are too complicated” vs Keith being the “These stats are pointless”.

by FrancoTAU on May 17, 2011 12:29 PM EDT up reply actions

I keep coming back to quarterback rating

which is opaque, but used universally (and also flawed.) It’s not the complexity in itself that turns people off. It’s more like the QWERTY keyboard — path dependent.

OPS is hardly an “advanced metric”, however, and it’s nearly as good as wOBA. Where some draw the line is in thinking about things like “WAR” and RC and so forth, which start to have a certain amount of abitrariness inserted for the sake of comparing apples and oranges. Useful if you’re a GM, but maybe not a heck of a lot better than OPS + general defensive understanding via scouting for a former player or announcer.

by tmu on May 17, 2011 1:09 PM EDT up reply actions

Well

note that Ralph never said anything about runs, batting average, or RBI. He just said he likes OPS. The other guys perhaps just don’t think it tells you a whole lot more than looking at a bunch of other stats collectively.

I think some players do think about OPS, incidentally. Brady Anderson (remember him?) used to say it was his favorite stat.

by tmu on May 17, 2011 1:04 PM EDT up reply actions

For the record

Bob Klapisch was at Columbia same time as Gary.

What's the score, boys?
What did Bugs Bunny do?
What's with the Carrot League baseball today?

by StorkFan on May 17, 2011 1:47 PM EDT up reply actions

well that puts things into perspective.

by SuperT on May 17, 2011 1:53 PM EDT up reply actions

LOL this.

Chamption of the R.A. Dickey Face contest and "Cromulent Photoshopper Extraordinaire" of Amazin' Avenue!

by Steve Schreiber on May 17, 2011 2:10 PM EDT up reply actions

C'mon

Antimatter is a perfectly acceptable topic of conversation during a baseball broadcast.

Now, kids, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep; in giant blender.

by meigs1414 on May 17, 2011 1:08 PM EDT reply actions

Ralph Kiner for hitting coach.

"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"
Gil Hodges IS a Hall of Famer.

AA Gamethread Embiggening Record Holder- 453 posts (10/03/10)
3rd Place- 2011 AAOP Contest

by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on May 17, 2011 1:57 PM EDT reply actions

I seriously would be all for this

He could have a deputy, so he wouldn’t need to be there for bp every day.

by SuperT on May 17, 2011 2:24 PM EDT up reply actions

i missed a mets game when they talked to an astronaut

about astrophysics???? damn.

I LIKE IKE!

by astromets on May 17, 2011 1:59 PM EDT reply actions

Ironic

"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"
Gil Hodges IS a Hall of Famer.

AA Gamethread Embiggening Record Holder- 453 posts (10/03/10)
3rd Place- 2011 AAOP Contest

by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on May 17, 2011 3:17 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions

This just in..,

Irony and misfortune are still not the same thing.

by Shea Strausman on May 17, 2011 7:02 PM EDT up reply actions

This just in, as well

get an original pet peeve. Mine is people who are sticklers for the use of “irony.”

by tmu on May 17, 2011 7:04 PM EDT up reply actions

No they're not, but in the above case, we have irony.

"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"
Gil Hodges IS a Hall of Famer.

AA Gamethread Embiggening Record Holder- 453 posts (10/03/10)
3rd Place- 2011 AAOP Contest

by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on May 18, 2011 12:55 AM EDT up reply actions

Ralph should be in the HOF as a broadcaster.

Not that he cares, since he’s already there as a player, but he’s great at what he does and we’re lucky to have him. I watch 150-plus games a season, and once in a while I find myself doing something else while the broadcast is going. Not when Ralph’s in the booth. I’ve been watching him with the Mets for 25 years, and I never get tired of him. The best.

by RetireNumber17 on May 17, 2011 2:22 PM EDT reply actions

Ralph is the man

That is all.

You don't cheer for the Mets. You drink for the Mets.

by Kevin H on May 17, 2011 2:25 PM EDT reply actions

Ralph is smarter than Omar

Squeezed to Song and Bendtner and Song and Nasri oh lovely lovely lovely!
-Peter Drury, the one time his commentating has ever been acceptable.

by Aidan Gibson on May 17, 2011 3:19 PM EDT reply actions

Ralph remembers everything

Not only does he recall something appropriate from his playing days to apply to a current situation, he can recall stories that he must have heard from old-timers when he was a young player.
Plus he was a Hall-of-Fame chick magnet back in the day, too.

by popshobby on May 17, 2011 4:01 PM EDT reply actions

I wish Sny had Ralph do more games

I believe he’s only been in the booth for one game this year. He should brought in every two weeks not once every six weeks.

by graves9 on May 17, 2011 4:15 PM EDT via mobile reply actions

I lobby Ralph for sideline reporter

by James Kannengieser on May 17, 2011 4:29 PM EDT reply actions

I lobby they bring back Kiner's Korner

by graves9 on May 17, 2011 4:36 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions

So much this

If we can’t have an Erin Andrews clone (which would look a little pathetic, anyway), we can at least have someone who knows baseball instead of a guy who acts liek the college visit tour guide who keeps hitting on your daughter.

by tmu on May 17, 2011 4:40 PM EDT up reply actions 3 recs

Ralph's first guest on Kiner's Korner

Troy Loney.

Ralph: “Troy your swing is terrible. What do you have to say for yourself, you sorry excuse for a major leaguer…”

Troy: (speechless)

I’d watch that.

by David G on May 17, 2011 7:14 PM EDT up reply actions

...you mean James Loney, right?

Chamption of the R.A. Dickey Face contest and "Cromulent Photoshopper Extraordinaire" of Amazin' Avenue!

by Steve Schreiber on May 17, 2011 9:21 PM EDT up reply actions

"Don't worry parents, your 17 year-old daughters will be in good hands at UMass!"

::::as tour guide winks::::

by James Kannengieser on May 17, 2011 9:24 PM EDT up reply actions

"so, are you staying near campus?"

by tmu on May 18, 2011 12:52 PM EDT up reply actions

Ralph walked a ton

during his career, so you can understand why he likes OPS. You’d think Keith would like it a little more, because factoring his strong OBP, it helps him make his case for the Hall when you compare him to other 1b that are already in there ahead of him with a lower OPS.

by David G on May 17, 2011 7:18 PM EDT reply actions

I think he just has never taken a serious look at advanced stats.

He just writes them off ala Joe Morgan just because it’s new and different. He’s way too smart to have spent a couple hours looking into them and still dismissing them like this.

by FrancoTAU on May 17, 2011 8:08 PM EDT up reply actions

Ralph's line about Loney is laugh out loud funny.

Ralph Kiner: [Loney] had some terrible swings in the first two games of this series. Makes you say ‘this guy is a major league hitter?’ Maybe he has the answer of how to get a base hit off a knuckleballer — have a terrible swing.

by FrancoTAU on May 17, 2011 8:10 PM EDT reply actions

Ralph Kiner took Jason Bay to school

by Razors_Edge on May 17, 2011 11:35 PM EDT reply actions

I lobby for someone from Amazin' Ave

to go in to the booth for a discussion on sabermetrics.
I’m sure some gentle education on the topic will help enlighten GK+R.
Make it happen AA!

by Guy Allen Davis on May 18, 2011 6:52 AM EDT reply actions

wOBA !!!!!!!!!

One day, this team is going to kill me.

by fxcarden on May 18, 2011 9:42 AM EDT up reply actions

Ted Berg

already with televised television experience on TV.

by tmu on May 18, 2011 12:48 PM EDT up reply actions

How do you not love Ralph? Seriously, he 80 years old, a stroke survivor and still has more wit and baseball acumen than the majority of guys working booths these days.

by Donal Murphy on May 18, 2011 11:47 AM EDT reply actions 4 recs