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Longtime wrestling announcer Michael Cole admitted this week that it is baseball, not wrestling that is his first love. While making that reveal, he also revealed he watches New York Mets games on his phone while calling the action on WWE Monday Night Raw.
Cole, (real name: Sean Michael Coulthard) who has worked for WWE since 1997, broke this news on Monday during an appearance on the New York Mets’ official podcast, Meet at the Apple. He also explained how he became a Mets fan and why he loves the game of baseball so much.
“My grandfather was a Yankees fan but my dad was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan,” Michael Cole told the show’s host Vito Calise.”So, they butted heads obviously.
“When the Dodgers moved out west, my dad didn’t have a National League team. When the Mets came along, he decided, ‘Okay, that’s my team.’ He couldn’t root for the Yankees. He fell in love with them in the ’60s, got season tickets and had them through about 1990. I grew up at Shea Stadium. Whether it was the Mets or the Jets, I was at about 50 to 60 games a year. It was a pretty great way to spend your childhood.
“I was brought up in Poughkeepsie, so we would make that hour and a half drive down to Shea a few times a week. So, it was fun and I mean, I’ve lived through the bad times. I’ve lived through the great times. I was at all the World Series games in ’86 when I was in college. So it’s it’s been a fun ride. And this year has been great. It’s been so much fun watching this team this year.”
Cole isn’t kidding about being a diehard Mets fan either. He regularly watches their games while simultaneously working on WWE Raw. He even admitted that he would be doing it the night of the interview.
“It’s such a wonderful sport,” Cole continued. “And what I like about it is you have to be a real fan to like baseball. Because you have to dedicate every single day, for six, seven, eight months. One of our directors in the company, Lee, is a huge Mets fan. Every single day of the year, it doesn’t matter if it’s Christmas Day or it’s the middle of the season, we are texting about this team. And we’re following the minor leagues and seeing how the kids are playing. And we’re b—— and moaning like every single Mets fan does. And the next day, it’s, ‘Oh my god, Soto is the best deal we have ever made.’
“We’re along for the ride just like y’all are too. Baseball, I love it because you have to dedicate so much time to the sport to understand it. You can’t be a casual fan, I don’t believe, and enjoy baseball. You have to get into the numbers and the weeds to really enjoy it, which I think is so cool. I’m an NBA guy, I love the Knicks. But you don’t have to spend every day studying the Knicks. Football happens once a week for your team. Baseball is an investment. People think I’m nuts that I watch nine innings of baseball every single night. They think I’m crazy. Pat McAfee, a broadcast partner of mine obviously, thinks I’m insane that I watch every single inning of the Mets game, whether they are good or bad. And I do.
“I’ll have my phone on the desk and I’ll have the game on with the sound down,” he admitted. “And I’ll be glancing over and you will sometimes see me pumping my fist when Soto hits a home run or something. I’m doing that while I’m on the air. Baseball is my first love.”