This Is What You Get When You #ScoreWithKeith

Over the past few weeks, SNY has given its viewers an extra reason to watch their telecasts of late-season Mets games by allowing them to score with Keith Hernandez.  No, we're not talking about scoring with him the way he wanted Elaine Benes to score with him in a classic episode of Seinfeld.  We're talking about the opportunity to win Keith's scorecard - the one he meticulously fills in using an assortment of colored markers during every Mets game. 

This past Friday, the cast and crew of Studious Metsimus decided to try our hardest to score with Keith.  To win an autographed scorecard, we had to provide the 17th correct answer to the question "how many Silver Sluggers did I win in my career?".  While everyone else searched his baseball-reference.com page for the answer, we already knew that Keith won a Silver Slugger Award as a member of the Cardinals in 1980 and took home a second Silver Slugger four years later as a member of the Mets.  Therefore, without wasting any additional seconds, we tweeted the following response to SNY.

@SNYtv 2 Silver Sluggers for Keith. #ScoreWithKeith
— Ed Leyro (@Studi_Metsimus) August 10, 2013

Within a few minutes, we had a direct message sent to us by SNY congratulating us for being the 17th correct answer.  After a shocked thank you response and an exchange of the address of the Studious Metsimus batcave (don't you wish you knew what it was), we watched the rest of the Mets game, which ended when Arizona's Paul Goldschmidt hit the schmidt out of the ball for a walk-off homer.

The game might have ended in nightmare fashion, but the following morning, SNY's Twitter account confirmed my wonderful dream had indeed come true.

Congrats to @studi_metsimus for winning last night's #scorewithkeith! Another chance to #scorewithkeith is coming tonight!
— SportsNet New York (@SNYtv) August 10, 2013

After a few moments channeling our inner Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, we spent the next few days going stir crazy waiting for the scorecard to arrive.  Well, to quote Keith Hernandez's boothmate, "It.  Has.  Happened."

Lo and behold, we give to you our #ScoreWithKeith prize - an autographed game-used Keith Hernandez scorecard, in living (and lots of) color, as shown off by our Studious Metsimus models, Iggy and Joey Beartran.  (You may enlarge the photo by clicking on it.)

The scorecard is of the May 16, 2013 contest between the Mets and Cardinals - a 5-2 victory by the Mets at Busch Stadium.  The side that was autographed by Keith has the Mets' lineup.  The other side (not autographed) features the Cardinals' lineup.

Anytime a team is held scoreless, Keith writes a "0" on the linescore (top center of the scorecard) in pencil.  Whenever a team scores in its half-inning, Keith writes the number of runs scored in ink.  Hernandez also writes a player's career hitting statistics against the day's starting pitcher on the left side of the scorecard, highlighted in purple next to the player's name.

Note the colors used on the scorecard when the Mets were batting during the 7th, 8th and 9th innings.  Hernandez used yellow for all but one batter (David Wright) in the seventh.  He used blue for Wright's at-bat.  Keith also used blue in the eighth and orange in the ninth.  Now take a peek at the top right of the scorecard where Keith lists the pitchers used by the Cardinals.  In particular, look at the relievers used by St. Louis.  Randy Choate is highlighted in yellow, while Fernando Salas is in blue and Joe Kelly is shaded orange.  Therefore, Choate pitched the seventh inning in relief of starter Adam Wainwright.  When David Wright came up to bat, Salas relieved Choate.  Salas retired Wright and was allowed to pitch the entire eighth inning.  Kelly then came in to pitch the ninth.  It's so easy, all you kids out there can follow it with ease!

Interestingly, Keith does not write a batting average the way it is normally seen in a boxscore.  For example, Cardinals' starting pitcher Adam Wainwright had allowed a .245 batting average to opposing hitters entering the May 16 tilt versus the Mets.  But instead of writing it that way (.245), Keith wrote it as 245%.  Hernandez also writes an "x" in lieu of the word "for" when talking about a hitter's performance at the plate.  He made note of the fact that Daniel Murphy was in an "0 x 17 slump", but was "11 x 17 vs. St. Louis", meaning he was 0-for-17, but was 11-for-17 against the Cardinals.

Keith also writes various notes on his scorecard to help him during the telecast.  For example, he made a small note at the top right of the scorecard that Wainwright had pitched a no-hitter for 7⅓ innings in his last start.  He also wrote Wainwright's won-loss record in 2012 (14-13) and the fact that he missed the 2011 campaign because of Tommy John surgery.

Hernandez's penmanship in quite legible, and his use of markers, pens and pencils in a variety of colors make his scorecard very easy to interpret.  Clearly, we have no quibbles about his scribbles.  (He did misspell Matt Holliday's last name, leaving off one of the Ls, but his fundies were still excellent.)

We'd like to thank Keith Hernandez and SNY for the opportunity to score with Keith.  We hope all our readers get the opportunity to do the same before the season is over.

Here are some more photos of the scorecard, as shown off by Joey and Iggy, and some guy in a Mets jersey who decided to photobomb one of the shots.  Once again, you can enlarge any of the photos by simply clicking on it.  Enjoy!

This Just Happened!

In case you missed it, we got our tweet selected by SNY as tonight's Tweet of the Game.  A tip of the blue Mets cap to both @MetsKevin11 and @metszilla for the screen grab:

For the record, Gary Cohen got confused by our Twitter handle, stuttering for a second before finally getting it right.  Keith Hernandez liked it and Ron Darling was probably eating something while it was on the air.

Thanks again to @MetsKevin11 and @metszilla for staying up late enough to catch it on SNY.  (You can follow Kevin on Twitter and see more of his outstanding meme work for The Daily Stache by clicking here.  And our good friends at Metszilla can be followed on Twitter here.)

Gary, Keith & Ron To Be Replaced (For Two Innings)

The beloved team of Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling will be replaced in the SNY booth tonight. Before you start calling for Fred Wilpon's head (save it for the day he fails to open his wallet to re-sign Jose Reyes), let me specify that the SNY crew will only be replaced for two innings. And who will be in the booth for those two innings?

None other than Bob Costas and Al Michaels.

Legendary broadcasters Costas and Michaels will be covering the Mets-Giants game for the MLB Network. Then during the fourth and fifth innings, they will switch with Gary Cohen and Ron Darling (Keith doesn't do games from his hometown) and will provide SNY viewers with the play-by-play and analysis. They will then move over to the San Francisco TV booth and call the game for their local channel in the sixth and seventh innings.

It will be the first time Al Michaels broadcasts a major league baseball game since 1995, as well as the his first pairing with Bob Costas in the booth.

However, some movie enthusiasts might disagree with that last statement. After all, the two did team up in the broadcast booth for several scenes in the movie "BASEketball" (see clip below), where they got, how shall we say this, a little too excited to be working together.



Don't forget to tune in tonight at 10:15PM (8:15PM Mountain Time, in case you live somewhere near South Park, Colorado), as the Mets play the first of three games against the defending World Champion San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park.

With Gary Cohen and Ron Darling passing the SNY baton to Bob Costas and Al Michaels for two innings, you never know what could happen. But you do know that you're going to be fully entertained and informed by two of the greatest sports broadcasters of our generation. That's reason enough to get excited. Right, Mr. Costas?

Gee Whiz! Dillon Gee To Get First Start On Tuesday

If I were a faster typist, this would truly be breaking news. In case you haven't heard it yet, SNY is reporting that Johan Santana will not make his scheduled start on Tuesday night against the Washington Nationals. In his stead will be Dillon Gee, promoted from AAA-Buffalo to make his first major league start.

In SNY's post-game show, Jerry Manuel stated that Johan Santana wants to pitch through his injury in the worst way, but will not be swayed to start his ace, as it is in the best interests of the organization for Santana to skip a start. 'Han the Man will continue to receive treatment and will be re-evaluated before the decision is made whether or not he will make his next scheduled start against Pittsburgh on Monday, September 13.

Manuel also stated that Dillon Gee will make the start for the Mets on Tuesday. In 28 starts for AAA-Buffalo, Gee finished with a 13-8 record, but his ERA was very high (4.96). One of the main reasons for his high ERA was the career-high 23 hone runs he allowed. Prior to the 2010 season, Gee had only allowed 13 HR in 45 starts and three relief appearances. On the bright side, Gee struck out 165 batters in 161.1 innings, while only walking 41 batters.

Dillon Gee has proven that he can throw strikes. He fans over one batter per inning, while maintaining a 4:1 strikeout to walk ratio. Unfortunately, some of his strikes are so good that opposing batters have yanked them out of the park.

In a season filled with successful rookie seasons (Ike Davis, Jonathon Niese) and other young players being given an extended look-see (Ruben Tejada, Josh Thole, Lucas Duda), Dillon Gee will try to become the latest Mets player to make the transition from the minor leagues to the big stage.

The future is now for the Mets. These will be the players who will replace the high-priced stars and overpaid busts in the coming years. For Dillon Gee, he will be getting his first shot to join these young players at the big league level on Tuesday night. Will it be a "Gee Whiz" moment for Dillon or a "Gee, I'm being overmatched" outing against the Nationals? Until then, we'll have to wait and Gee.

Get Ready For The Mets Broadcast About Nothing

Did you hear the one about the comedian and the former first baseman who called a baseball game for the New York Mets? No? Well, come Wednesday night, you will.

According to today's New York Post, legendary comedian and lifelong Mets fan Jerry Seinfeld will join Keith Hernandez and Gary Cohen in the broadcast booth for at least three innings (and maybe more).

SNY's vice president of production, Curt Gowdy said the following regarding Seinfeld's appearance on the telecast:

"Jerry is scheduled for the top of the third inning, for at least three innings, and more if he wants to do more . . . There's no set script."

In addition, SNY also plans to air clips from the classic Seinfeld episode, "The Boyfriend", in which Keith Hernandez played himself in a prominent role. Keith and Jerry will also be discussing their experiences working together on the episode.

As a Seinfeld fan, I was ecstatic to hear about the "reunion" of Jerry Seinfeld and Keith Hernandez and wondered what it would be like to have other Seinfeld cast members appearing on Mets telecasts. Then I thought of all the potential disasters that could cause (especially with the hipster doofus himself, Kramer) and instead came up with a Top Ten list of why Jerry Seinfeld should be the only cast member to appear in the broadcast booth. Enjoy!


TOP TEN REASONS WHY NO OTHER SEINFELD CAST MEMBER SHOULD EVER DO PLAY-BY-PLAY FOR THE METS

10. When the camera pans into the booth, there is a chance it could catch Elaine dancing.

9. Newman would run off with Keith Hernandez's Tootsie Pops.

8. Upon entering the booth, Kramer would trip and take down the entire set.

7. George would mistakenly refer to the Mets as the Moops.

6. Fear that a bad call by an umpire would elicit a "No Soup For You" comment from the booth.

5. Kramer and Newman would spend the telecast plotting their revenge against Roger McDowell for his magic loogie. (Well, Newman would...)

4. Frank Costanza would repeatedly interrupt Gary Cohen to extol the virtues of Festivus.

3. Elaine would spend too much air time trying to determine if David Wright is spongeworthy.

2. No backup plan for when Newman spends three innings standing in line at Shake Shack instead of doing play-by-play.

...and the number one reason why no other Seinfeld cast member should ever do play-by-play for the Mets is:

1. Too much discussion on whether Keith Hernandez was ever master of his domain.


Be sure to tune in on Wednesday night to see the Mets play the Detroit Tigers at Citi Field. Of course, you were probably going to tune in anyway to see our beloved Mets as they continue to make a push towards the top of the National League East standings. But now you have another reason to watch.

Jerry Seinfeld and Keith Hernandez made a great team back in the '90s on a classic episode of Seinfeld. Now they'll be together again when they share the spotlight with Gary Cohen during Wednesday night's telecast. It should be a true SNY Mets classic...not that there's anything wrong with that.