Mets Broadcasts Playing Favorites?

A curious thing happened during the broadcast of the Mets-Brewers game on Wednesday — it appeared replays that could have gone against the Mets were withheld until the Brewers manager decided not to challenge the call. Is SNY playing favorites?

I actually waited a day to write this to see if the same thing happened Thursday, but there were no similar incidents.

So here’s what happened — in the fourth inning Khris Davis was forced out at third on a sacrifice attempt. It was a very close play. Ron Roenicke came out to “talk” to the umpires about the play, killing time while his people looked at the TV replays to determine if he should challenge. This is usually the time when the broadcasts show as many angles of the play as possible. However, SNY only showed us Roenicke chatting with the umpire. It was only after one of Roenicke’s coaches gave the thumbs down that we saw the replays.

Compare that to the bottom of the fifth when Taylor Teagarden was thrown out at first on an extremely close play. SNY instantly showed us as many angles of the play as possible (to the point of annoyance!)  while Terry Collins went through the farce of discussing it with the umpires. By the way, Collins challenged the play and it was somehow upheld, even though the replays showed he was clearly safe. Collins argued afterwards, which is not allowed, and he was thrown out of the game.

Is SNY purposely not showing replays that could negatively impact the Mets? And if that is the case, who made that decision, SNY suits or the Mets front office? It should be noted that the Mets own part of SNY, so draw your own conclusions.

New York sports broadcasts in general have always been reasonably impartial — there is never any open rooting from the booth which is common in most other cities. So it would be a shame if this is actually happening. A TV broadcast should not play a role in determining the outcome of a game.