I haven’t been around here much of late (GC can vouch for the resultant spike in readership) but I’ve been pulling long hours in the ghastly dude-chamber that I refer to as an office in my more self-important moments. I’m also in the process of allowing my very dysfunctional relationship with the very dysfunctional Mets to cool into mutual contempt/disinterest, which takes time. What I’ll miss most as I continue to ween myself away from these weenies — even more than the opposite-of-a-buzz that sweeps the stands when Argenis Reyes comes on to pinch-hit — is the Mets spectacular three-headed announcing monster. To say that they’ve been more entertaining than the team they cover this season is a dramatic understatement. To say that they’ve nearly rescued the experience of watching the most depressing team in recent Mets history is closer to the compliment they deserve.

Gary (Cohen), Keith (Hernandez) and Ron (Darling) have received plenty of commentary in this space — their drinking game is already the stuff of too-dangerous-to-try legend — but they’re here again because they recently received a great journalistic salute from the New York Observer’s John Koblin. Koblin leads with an on-air sneeze from Keith Hernandez, and the piece somehow gets better from there. The dialogue bits are hard to excerpt effectively, but they actually read better than they sound. If movies had dialogue this good, they wouldn’t need loud robots:

Gary and Ron talked about how deflating it is for a pitcher when he™s working on a no-hitter and loses it. Inevitably, the conversation turned to the time the Mets”who have, amazingly, never had a no-hitter”came their closest to one: a game in July 1969, when Tom Seaver was two outs away only to surrender a left-center hit to the Cubs™ reserve man, Jimmy Qualls.

œSeaver looked like he wanted to go and strangle Jimmy Qualls, said Ron. œThat™s the look he gave.

Silence.

Keith: œHe™s a winemaker now”Thomas.

Ron: œDon™t forget Nancy Chardonnay.

It was a reference to the wine Seaver named after his wife.

Keith: œIt™s Nancy Fancy”it™s a red.

Ron: œOh, it is? I thought it was a char.

Keith: œIt™s like a petite sirah, almost.

Gary: œAre you oenophiles done?

Ron: œIt™s a blend, right?

They all laughed.

Keith: œSorry, Gar.

Gary: œIt all tastes the same to me.

More silence.

Keith: œI had a splendid Joseph Phelps the other night!

Gary: œReyes down swinging, and that™s seven strikeouts for Burnett.