Wayne said, "Yeah it was ridiculous. Dan Bellino, a Chicago area Italian; I don't want to go too far with my criticism." So Howie said, "Oh here we go. I should've done my homework and looked at his license plates." Then Wayne said, "But yes, I think that Major League Baseball would be well within its rights to take some action against Dan Bellino for how he acted yesterday." And Howie said, "You'll only take him to dinner."

Good one. They make a good pair.

community chest, you are right that Wayne is an exponential improvement over his predecessor, who shall remain nameless in this post.

I do have to say that Wayne is often annoyingly verbose about the National League team that plays in Chicago. Thankfully, he no longer uses the term "Schwarbomb" when Kyle Schwarber hits a home run, but the only reason he stopped doing that is because Schwarber doesn't play for his favorite team anymore. You've gotta think that the moment Pat Hughes or Ron Coomer retires, the Cubs are going to swoop in and poach Wayne away from the Bob Murphy Broadcast booth. But then again, Vin Scully was a NY Giants fan as a kid, so there's hope he'll stay long-term.

I also must unequivocally state that I can't stand it when he talks about food. I don't care what he likes or doesn't like, and I don't want to know what they are eating in the booth; which I actually find kind of disgusting, eating food while calling a game on the radio. Now the positive. I've listened to the Mets on the radio since 2016, and before that I listened to every game on the radio from 2011 to 2014 (I only bought the mlb.com TV package in 2015). I prefer Howie and Wayne to anyone I listened to during that time, including the TV team, which is great in their own way, but I just like the radio team better.

In my opinion, the only #2 Mets radio broadcaster better than Wayne is Gary Thorne. To me, the Bob Murphy and Gary Thorne era is the ultimate peak in great broadcasting, coinciding with the team during their time together. Just listen to their call of Game 6 of the 1986 NLCS on Youtube. That was a golden era to listen to the Mets on the radio, 1985-1989, when that broadcasting team was together. I think Howie and Wayne could eventually reach the level of Bob Murphy and Gary Thorne, as long as they avoid talking about food (and the Mets win).

I have another funny memory of Greg Gianotti on the Boomer and Greg show making fun of one of Wayne's calls. In 2019 (back when I listened to the FAN), they played a clip of Wayne calling a home run to win a game, and Greg and Boomer were laughing at his inflection, with Greg mimicking him in a 1940s radio broadcaster's voice. Honestly, it was funny and pretty spot on; Wayne DOES sound like a 1940s radio broadcaster when he gets excited, but I like that.

Shifting briefly away from Wayne to highlight how difficult good broadcasting is, I have read the eviscerating (and in my opinion, more-or-less accurate) negative comments on Gary Cohen's page on this site. Although I am not a Cohen fan by any means, I still think, in spite of his quirks, Gary is one of the best in the game. The negative comments about Gary made me realize that broadcasting baseball games is an extremely difficult job, and you can't please everyone. Gary Cohen is actually one of the top broadcasters in the game if you compare him to other MLB broadcasters on TV and on the radio. For instance, I'm listening to the Phillies' broadcast of the Mets' seven-run comeback, and all through the game I am simply bored beyond tears, zoning out, and shaking my head about the random things these Phillies radio guys are talking about. As Lenny Dykstra would say, it sounds like both these guys both took a Xanax before the game. The way they're calling it, you get the impression that the Phillies are down 17-1, not up 7-1. And listening to the comeback at this very moment, they get more languid and more sleepy as the Mets start coming back. Then they become total homers at the end, begging for the Phillies to hold down the lead, which obviously doesn't happen. Awful broadcasting. At best, it sounds like they're fill-ins calling a Grapefruit League game.

You don't get that with the Mets' broadcasters. Even when the Mets were down by a lot last night, Howie and Wayne still found a way to keep things interesting throughout the game. When the Mets came back, it was a great moment in the franchise's history, but also for Howie and Wayne. Howie got all the great calls in the ninth inning, but the whole game was fun to listen to.

The comeback was the highlight of the game, but Howie's zinger about Wayne taking Dan Bellino out to dinner was a close second.

I still say he's going to be a "Trojan Horse" until a spot opens up with the Cubs. Better it be with the Angels than with the Mets.

More importantly, this is great news for Mets fans because it means now there's a chance Gary Thorne (a real pro who doesn't talk about food) might come back full-time to the Bob Murphy Radio Booth.