While Mets fans can take considerable solace in the past 48 hours’ events — in particular, the performances of Jonathon Niese and R.A. Dickey — Friday’s Opening Day loss in Miami concluded with the sort of TV production stunt that would have Bill Webb turning over in his grave. If he were dead. From the New York Times’ Richard Sandomir :
An employee, whom SNY would not identify, inserted a few seconds from a 2010 “Family Guy” episode that made light of the Mets’ miseries.
The few seconds are from a sequence that starts when Stewie Griffin, the sassy baby with a British accent, says, “So far, Halloween is a bigger letdown than being a Mets fan.”
The scene then cuts to Stewie, in a seat at a ballpark. An announcer says, “Opening day, and here’s the first pitch — and the season’s over.” The audience watching the Mets game heard only, “Opening day and here’s the first pitch” before the sound of the game returned.
Andrew Fegyveresi, an SNY spokesman, said, “It was a very poor decision by an individual employee and the matter is being dealt with internally.”
With all due respect to Mr. Fegyveresi, there’s all sorts of poor decisions that SNY has inflicted upon cable and satellite viewers. What’s a little Stewie Griffin after we’ve already suffered through Chris Cotter and Joe Benigno-Gazingo?