After being taunted with a broom, Michael Kay dropped a hammer.
Kay, the Yankees’ play-by-play announcer on YES Network and a radio host on ESPN, responded on Sunday to Jamie Campbell of Rogers Sportsnet in Toronto. Campbell had called him out after the Blue Jays swept a four-game series against the struggling Yankees to claim first place in the AL East.
Campbell brandished a broom and remarked, “I can think of a certain Yankees broadcaster, in fact, who is going to have to go on his show and admit that the Blue Jays are a first-place team because the standings prove it.”
So, how did Kay respond?
Kay stated, “What I would say to Jamie is I can easily say the Blue Jays are a first-place team because I’m not a fawning fanboy. I’m a broadcaster,” during his Sunday Conversation with Nancy Newman ahead of the Yankees-Mets series finale at Citi Field. “And the bottom line is they are, in fact, a first-place team.”
Kay wasn’t done. Not by a longshot. Not with about half of the season remaining.
“Imagine if (YES Network studio host) Jack Curry was waving a broom on the Yankees postgame show,” Kay said. “He would probably be called into the office and shortly fired after that.
“Now, I love Toronto. It is a cosmopolitan city. It is one of the greatest cities in the world, for me. You’re waving a broom on a postgame show, you are turning it into Mayberry RFD. I just don’t get it. I don’t understand it. You should be proud of the fact you are in first place.
“And one final thing: You shouldn’t hang on the rim three minutes into the third quarter of a basketball game. Feel good about sweeping the Yankees. Feel good about winning all these games in a row. Feel good about being in first place. But to hang on the rim this early? Let’s hang on the rim in October. That’s when you hang on the rim.”
The back-and-forth started with comments that Kay on Wednesday during the middle of the fates-turning Yankees-Blue Jays series. He cited run differential as a reason that the Yankees are a better team than the Blue Jays.
“The Blue Jays are not a first-place team, I’m sorry,” Kay said, via Awful Announcing. “If you look at the run differential, the Yankees’ run differential is +105. The Blue Jays … they’re +4. Do you realize, they should be a .500 team because of a +4 run differential? And the Yankees should have at least four or five more wins with a +105 run differential. They’re not playing great baseball. I’m sorry, they’re not.”
Those numbers have changed as the Blue Jays have kept winning and the Yankees have kept losing. The Yankees are back in Toronto on July 21.
