(above : not Keith Hernandez. Probably)

I watched some of yesterday’s Mets/Pirates make-up game, but apparently not the right parts. In what I watched, the Mets were hitting singles and Keith Hernandez was shit-talking the ineffective, soft-tossing Paul Maholm — “where was this guy in the 1980s,” he said after Nick Evans hit something like the fifth straight single off Maholm in the fifth inning — and then the Mets bullpen was wearily slouching towards a K-Rod breakdown. Sadly, I missed the part in which Keith Hernandez and Gary Cohen discussed the fact that the Mets were staying in the same hotel as a bunch of attendees from this week’s Furry Convention in Pittsburgh. Thankfully, UniWatch’s Paul Lukas was there to catch and transcribe the discussion.

Gary Cohen: There’s the Pirate Parrot, entertaining. One of many, uh, animal figures in town today.

Keith Hernandez: Saw a few around the hotel, didn’t we?

Cohen: The strangest convention I’ve ever seen is at our hotel here in Pittsburgh. You know, you travel around the country and you see parts of our society and our culture you never would’ve encountered anywhere else. There is a group of people, about 4,000 strong, convening in Pittsburgh this week. People who dress up as stuffed animals.

Hernandez: They’re cuddly bears. They like to cuddle.

Cohen: Bears, birds, dogs…

Hernandez: What are they called..?

Cohen: …wolves…

Hernandez: Ferriers..? All’s I know is I got in the elevator with four of them and the odor was horrific. [Camera shows the Pirate Parrot again.]

Cohen: Not the Pirate Parrot. He’s a natural mascot.

Hernandez: I had to get off. I’m not lyin’. I was on the 17th floor, goin’ down. I had to jump off on the 10th floor. I almost passed out.

Cohen: Guess those costumes don’t breathe very well. But it was, it was something, we walked into the hotel last night, coming from Milwaukee, and there was a, a, person in a wolf’s costume. And another person in a dog costume.

Hernandez: I saw a guy with, with his pet beaver. He had his hand, he was stroking it, he was petting it. [Long pause.] I’m serious! It was a, like a stuffed animal, and he was comforting it. Very bizarre.

Cohen: It’s a different world.

Lukas sees Hernandez’s language — “gettin’ off,” “goin’ down” — as pro-plushy semaphore. “Just come out and admit you’re a total perv who fantasizes about banging the Philly Phanatic and then we can all move on with our lives,” Lukas advises. And while this may well be the case, I prefer to think that the reliably mustachioed Mex was just bummed not to be the furriest guy in the building.