Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay is keeping his calls as down the middle as he can – even if fans don’t necessarily like that.
Kay was speaking with the Marlins Radio Network when Stephen Strom noted his surprise at how the longtime TV voice of the Bronx Bombers had given Marlins outfielder Kyle Stowers an enthusiastic call after he hit a grand slam in the seventh inning of Friday’s game.
Stowers’ grand slam was part of a comeback by the Marlins, which saw the Yankees blow a 9-4 lead and lose 13-12.
“You want to be fair to everybody, you want to be fair to the business,” Kay told Strom. “It almost seems like it makes you more of an outlier. Because around baseball, you see an opposing team hits a home run and the guy just talks it through. And I could never be like that. But to tell you the truth, on social media, the Yankee fans don’t like it. They don’t like it at all. ‘Why are you getting excited?’ I get excited for the game of baseball. So if somebody threw a no-hitter against the Yankees, I’d get excited.
“Now obviously it’s better for our network if the Yankees win, so your heart is that way, but I think you have to call it down the middle. Again, a lot of people don’t think like that.”
Kay later told Stowers that he credits his previous life as a journalist for his desire to call games without bias, while also noting that John Sterling had influenced him as well.
The weekend had been a tough one for the Yankees, who were swept by the Marlins, which included the ugly loss on Friday night that Kay described as the “worst loss of the year.”
