BECAUSE IT'S NOT PIZZA:

For fans, a local broadcast booth is like part of the family, which is one of those baseball clichés that happens to be true. It also cuts both ways. We've all got relatives like Gary Keith and Ron, whom we learn from and who make us laugh and whose emotions are riding the same roller coaster as our own, and so we make time for them as often as we can. And we've all got relatives who, like too many broadcast booths, have been repeating themselves for 20 years; and yes, sure, a part of us loves them, but another part of us fantasizes about smothering them with a pillow.

"There are a lot of baseball announcers who talk like they think baseball announcers ought to talk. They lack self-awareness and seem to be beaming in from another dimension," said Bryan Curtis, columnist and host of a podcast about the media for The Ringer, the sports and culture commentary site. Gary Keith and Ron, he continued, are "actually unique" and succeed despite having "an incredibly hard job: How do you make a hopeless season fun?"

The answer begins with Gary. Ron calls Gary "the greatest docent of Mets history," but encyclopedic knowledge isn't necessarily a virtue. What really matters is that he gets the difference between a perceptive detail and a useless piece of trivia. The previous night, deGrom, whose wondrous season has been kneecapped by feeble run support, again got no help, exiting a scoreless game after eight innings. Gary observed that the Mets' home batting average had dropped to just .207, worse than any team since 1910 and a number that pushes the limits of mathematical possibility. It was becoming a season of Hasn't Happened Sinces, and Gary was ready.

Ron, meanwhile, is cerebral (Yale) and a splendid explainer of top-shelf pitching. He's concise, with flawless timing -- a rare asset in sports announcing. During one late-season game the Mets were actually winning 3-0, with the reliever Robert Gsellman on the mound, no one out in the top of the ninth, and the Nats' shortstop, Trea Turner, at the plate, Ron got to work. It seemed like a low-risk situation, but as soon as Gsellman fell behind three balls to one strike, Ron sensed danger. "Three-run lead, can't walk a hitter," he said sharply. Ron is from Hawaii and generally speaks in welcoming tones, but suddenly his intensity lit up, and instead of a rambling list of strategic options, he threw a heater, which is exactly what he wanted Gsellman to throw. "Challenge him, make him put it in play!" Gsellman obeyed, whistling two straight 96-mph fastballs past Turner.

Keith is still stopped on the street for his "Seinfeld" appearance in 1992, but he has been more like the Cosmo Kramer of the Mets' booth -- a sui generis human specimen who couldn't be more Keith Hernandez if he tried, and he is definitely trying. He is also a former M.V.P. and a lifetime .296 batter who won 11 Gold Gloves in a row and who, according to modern sabermetrics (and to me), has a real case for entry into the Hall of Fame.

"Look at that scar," he said, more insistently now.

It was very crowded in there, which made Keith's scar easy to see. Citi Field opened in 2009, but the broadcast booth feels as if it were teleported from Shea Stadium circa 1978. Every expense has been spared. There's a T-shaped metal bar wedged under the broadcast counter to stave off imminent collapse. Gary looked up from his scorecard and glanced down at Keith's scar, wordless but not uninterested.

"I stuck my foot in a lawn mower when I was a kid," Keith said. "I almost ripped the tendon up my leg. Would've ruined me for life. No Mets!" His eyes went wide at the horrifying counterfactual, the "Sliding Doors" of it all. "Imagine it, Gar -- no Mets!"

Gar imagined it for a moment, then returned to his scorecard. From my vantage point behind him, the crown of his head was so perfectly egg-shaped I imagined myself tapping it with a spoon. Ron slipped through a crevice back into the booth, reclaimed his chair and put on his headset. Ten seconds and we would be back from break. Keith did a long leonine stretch, and then somewhere in his brain a neuron fired.

"Do you like Chicago deep-dish pizza?" he asked no one in particular. "I never did."

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