Michael Kay, John Flaherty’s tense on-air exchange leads to awkward YES silence

Things got very awkward between Michael Kay and John Flaherty in the YES booth, leading to a long pause of on-air silence.

Flaherty took things in an odd direction with Kay while talking about Wrigley Field being located in a residential neighborhood during the top of the seventh inning of the Yankees-Cubs broadcast on Friday, deciding to bring up his partner’s lack of chattiness on the ride over.

“You weren’t very talkative on the bus this morning to the field, but as I was driving here, I was thinking it would be great to get a place that’s close so you could walk back and forth,” Flaherty said. “I know you mentioned Don Zimmer living in the apartments out in center field. But I just had a lot of time to think on the team bus today, because it was very quiet.”

Then, things got uncomfortable.

“So you’d rather me be chatty?” Kay responded. “I wasn’t feeling great.”

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Flaherty seemed to be caught off guard by the somewhat terse responses.

“I haven’t seen you in a long time, right?” the former Yankees catcher said. “You don’t work road trips any more when I’m on the road. So I thought we would catch up, and it quickly was evident that you weren’t in the mood, so I gathered my thoughts about how it would be nice to live close to Wrigley and walk back and forth to the park.”

Things got very heated after that with Kay accusing Flaherty of preferring to work with YES play-by-play man Ryan Ruocco instead of him.

“Interesting narrative that you’re putting together, because I’ve been told by executives that you prefer to work with Ruocco,” Kay said. That’s why you two guys are matched up all the time. That’s just what I heard, I don’t know if there’s any truth to it.”

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Flaherty then took a shot at Kay’s work schedule.

“I just put together that the road trips you don’t want to go on are the ones where I end up working with Ryan Ruocco, because you don’t want to work the games on the road,” he fired back.

Thankfully, a groundball from Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson to Gleyber Torres at second base forced Kay to focus on something else for second, but he then went right back to Flaherty’s schedule claims.

“Listen, John, I don’t pick out my schedule, I go where I’m told,” the longtime voice of the Yankees said.

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It led to a long break of dead air before Kay added: “I’ll be very chatty tomorrow.”

Flaherty seemed to move on after.

“No, I just wanted to make sure that you’re OK, I was worried about you,” he said.

But Kay took the time for one more jab.

“I think you were worried that I wouldn’t be talking much on the broadcast,” Kay said.

The Yankees went on to win the game, 3-0, and Kay and Flaherty will be back behind the mic for the 2:20 p.m. middle game of the series in Chicago.

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