SNY turns Alec Bohm’s parabolic mic meltdown into comedy gold at Citi Field

Alec Bohm has become a close second to Bryce Harper as the Phillies player who gets booed the most at Citi Field.

That only happened this week, though.

And it all happened because Bohm decided to complain about a parabolic microphone that’s been sitting in the same spot since 2017.

During Wednesday’s series finale, Bohm was booed viciously throughout New York’s 6-0 shutout win. And John DeMarsico and the folks at SNY leaned into it perfectly, showing fans bringing their homemade parabolic microphones to torture Bohm with.

“It’s the rally parabola,” quipped Gary Cohen as the camera lingered on fans waving their homemade creations.

And then a parabolic graphic appeared on the SNY broadcast, because of course it did.

“Either way, Alec Bohm has cast himself as a villain at Citi Field for his anti-parabolic microphone rant,” Cohen said.

“It’s got a life of its own now,” Ron Darling added.

Indeed, it does.

DeMarsico has built a reputation for weaving cinematic touches and visual jokes into Mets broadcasts. He’s the Emmy-winning director who puts movie homages into baseball games and finds ways to tell stories through camera work that other broadcasts miss.

So when Bohm handed him comedy gold by creating a 20-minute delay over equipment that’s been part of Citi Field since the Obama administration, DeMarsico wasn’t going to waste it.

The whole mess started Monday when Bohm complained about glare from a parabolic microphone in the batter’s eye. Never mind that both teams were dealing with the same conditions. Never mind that the Mets had been hitting against Phillies lefty Cristopher Sanchez all game without issue. Bohm grounded into a double play and suddenly decided the microphone was a problem.

What followed was a 20-minute delay over nothing, followed by Philadelphia giving up 10 unanswered runs, and the Phillies’ own postgame show roasting Bohm.

“You caused a 19-minute delay on something that’s been there since at least 2017,” said Ricky Bottalico on Phillies Postgame Live. “We went back and checked.”

But Mets fans don’t forget, and SNY knows how to feed that energy. DeMarsico has turned Mets broadcasts into appointment television by finding these moments and amplifying them. When Francisco Lindor complained about a pitcher not making eye contact, SNY used a “blinking” transition between cameras. When Juan Soto was playing a bottle-flipping game in the dugout, they put it in a picture-in-picture so fans could watch both the game and Soto’s victory.

This is different from the typical baseball broadcast that treats everything with reverential seriousness. SNY embraces the theater and absurdity of baseball, especially when it involves division rivals doing dumb things.

“The language of baseball is inherently more cinematic than other sports,” DeMarsico explained to Awful Announcing in a recent interview. He’s proven that by turning a stupid complaint about broadcast equipment into a running comedy that had Mets fans creating props.

The Phillies still lead the National League East because they had a seven-game lead coming in. But Bohm managed to turn himself into a Citi Field villain over the most ridiculous controversy possible. He complained about equipment that’s been there for nearly a decade, disrupted his team during a crucial series, and handed Mets fans something to mock him with forever.

Now every time Bohm comes to Queens, fans will have their rally parabolas ready. And SNY will be there to capture every second of it, probably with some cinematic flourish that makes it even funnier.