The most endearingly wacky part of any Mets game on television these days comes when Gary Cohen, the primary play-by-play announcer for the team’s new network, SportsNet New York, appears on camera alongside his color commentator, usually Keith Hernandez or Ron Darling, both former Mets stars. Mr. Cohen, a wiry, bald, bespectacled baseball geek, takes the opportunity of being on television to lean in so close to his partner that he almost shoves them out of the frame.When this happens, Messrs. Hernandez and Darling appear quite uncomfortable with the enforced intimacy and seem relieved when the director shifts the action back to the playing field.

I can certainly understand Mr. Cohen’s enthusiasm, though. After doing brilliant Mets play-by-play on WFAN for 17 years, his enjoyment of Mets baseball on television is both palpable and pleasurable for an audience of fans thrilled,at last, to be watching the Mets play up to their potential.It’s the perfect season for a new cast of characters in the broadcast booth, and I’m happy to report that SportsNet New York – though not exactly the catchiest name for a channel – more than meets the needs of any diehard Mets fan. Their giddy joy at the Mets’ success makes the games, at long last,a joy to watch from beginning to end.

Of course, there’s no disputing that Mr.Hernandez made a colossal error last week when he criticized the presence of a woman in the San Diego Padres dugout; she turned out to be the team’s masseuse. (“Who is the girl in the dugout,with the long hair?” Mr. Hernandez initially inquired; after finding out, he offered this opinion: “I won’t say that women belong in the kitchen, but they don’t belong in the dugout.”The Mets organization later labeled his remarks “inappropriate.”) But having said that, I’ve come to appreciate the freewheeling atmosphere in the booth that generated Mr. Hernandez’s observation; he speaks from the heart, as opposed to, say, Clyde Frazier’s dramatic readings from Roget’s Thesaurus during Knicks games.

During last Friday night’s Mets-Braves matchup in Atlanta, the Cohen-Hernandez duo delivered a classic example of the SportsNet style with their witty,knowledgeable banter.Before the end of the second inning, the savvy Mr. Hernandez observed that every Mets batter had taken a swing on the first pitch thus far; no team statistician could possibly have put that together for him. He and Mr. Cohen offered cogent analysis of every pitch (“That’s no curve, that’s a splitter,” Mr. Hernandez said at one point, disputing the scoreboard’s official designation of a John Smoltz fireball) and insightfully praised new Mets first baseman Carlos Delgado for his methodical recording of every pitch in a notebook when he returns to the dugout. Indeed, SportsNet New York should be commended for showing us a shot of Mr. Delgado’s habit at some point during every game; the dugout cameras are getting more use this season than ever before.

As the season progresses, maybe Mr. Cohen will settle down a little; at the moment, he rarely lets a moment of airtime pass without inserting some tidbit of information or trivia he keeps at his wiry fingertips. It’s fun to have a booth announcer with so much savvy,but it gets a bit tiresome, too – he seems to forget that he is no longer on the radio,and that we can observe the action for ourselves without his commentary. And his partners in the booth will surely appreciate it if he stops leaning in front of them when the camera pays its occasional homage to their presence.

But for the most part, Mr. Cohen’s arrival on camera represents a reason to celebrate. I loved the moment in the bottom of the eighth inning last Friday night, when the camera picked up an image of a television monitor in the Atlanta ballpark encased in a giant baseball. For a brief moment, Mr. Cohen appeared to forget the excitement of the game on the field and waxed poetic about the joys of owning such a wondrous piece of home-entertainment furniture. “A baseball TV,” Mr. Cohen enthused. “Get one for your living room … bedroom … bathroom …” His voice trailed off, and a viewer knew that Mr. Cohen was lost for a moment in the fantasy of baseball television sets in every nook and cranny of his home. This is a man who loves television, baseball, and the Mets, though not necessarily in that order. He’s a welcome addition to the Mets television roster, and long may he remain.

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The folks at ABC’s “Nightline” proudly offered to critics their two-part look at the New York City pre-school admissions nightmare, set to air this Wednesday and Thursday. However, I can only recommend it if you don’t mind going to bed hungry. Correspondent Martin Bashir’s commentary on the crazed Manhattan parental obsession of getting precious progeny into the proper schools doesn’t go anywhere deep enough to extend our understanding of the madness. Instead, the pieces seem intended primarily to sensationalize the experience by showing us parents acting like idiots for the camera. I kept wondering about the husband who wisely refused to appear on camera with his wife,and what he might have had to say about the insanity of those who unburden themselves on national television at the expense of their children.

dblum@nysun.com