After losing his ESPN commentary gig over what he insists was “a brief and innocuous hug”, Harold Reynolds has resurfaced on the Mets’ SNY, telling the New York Times’ Richard Sandomir, œI needed to get back on TV. Now we™ll see what happens, with Fox, TBS and the baseball network. Hey, if it was that simple, don’t you think Chris Cotter would be co-hosting “The View” by now?
He sued ESPN in state court in Hartford for wrongful termination, refusing to let the Bristol empire halt his career ” he had just signed a six-year, $4.9 million deal ” without challenging the accusations. Now he is certain that he would not have the SNY job, or one at MLB.com, which hired him last year while the case was in litigation, if he had not sued.
œA lot of people said, ˜You might be putting your career at risk,™ he said Friday night. œI felt I didn™t have a choice. I didn™t think it would fade away. I had to stand up and fight. I calculated the costs and I did what I had to do.
Reynolds™s style and experience create a contrast with Lee Mazzilli, who is knowledgeable but can seem dour if he is the only commentator on the set, and Darryl Strawberry, who has a limited role but needs to learn to be candid and not equivocate, without being pressed by the host, Matt Yallof.
Reynolds said that he did not watch œBaseball Tonight.
He said, œI helped build that show, but it™s not the same one I was on. He said the show™s commentary had suffered without him but would not cite individual lapses.
œ ˜Baseball Tonight™ is as strong as it has ever been, Mike Soltys, an ESPN spokesman, said.
Kruk regaining all the weight he lost on NutriSystem cannot really be consider a lapse. Not in broadcasting terms, anyway.