Howie Rose has made a career out of broadcasting some of the biggest events in New York sports history. Sunday night, he took a shot at the mothership, ESPN.
Rose, who is part of the broadcast team for New York Mets games on WOR 710 AM, let loose Sunday night as the Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers were set to finish a three-game series.
“The Dodgers have won their first six, and they’ll go for the season series sweep tonight just as soon as the network stooge down there says that it’s OK to play baseball,” Rose began.
Network stooge. That’s a great term, one we don’t hear nearly enough. Rose continued.
“The pitcher, Steven Matz, is rubbing up the ball, he’s ready to go. The home plate umpire, Tim Timmons, looking suitably disgusted, just took his mask off and kind of rests it against his left hip as he helplessly stares near the Dodger dugout where said network stooge is holding all the cards.”
Whether Matz was ready to go or not is debatable. The 26-year-old delivered another clunker of an outing, allowing five earned runs and six hits over 5.1 innings of work. Over his last six starts, he’s gone 1-5 with an 11.03 ERA and 2.20 WHIP.
But Rose wasn’t done.
“So, suspended animation on the field right now. You’ve got nine Mets standing around, you’ve got the Dodgers’ leadoff hitter, Chris Taylor, standing — it really is ludicrous — but now, and only now, do we get the OK, and so we’re gonna have a baseball game here tonight, about seven hours later than we should have.”
The game was originally scheduled for 1 p.m. ET, but ESPN decided to tap it for their national broadcast (which is their right), pushing the start time back to after 8 p.m. ET.
Josh Lewin, Rose’s partner in the WOR booth, filled him in on what the holdup was in the top of the third inning. “They were running a big feature on how Justin Turner beats up the Mets. Like that couldn’t have waited.”
Of course, Turner was at the plate and proceeded to go yard.