Interview #56: Sports Emmy-Winner Matthew Searle
And current Mets Entertainment Statistician
Matthew Searle’s LinkedIn profile lists his job as Mets Entertainment Statistician. Which is not a career path I was told I could take during career days in high school. But there’s lots of niche jobs in baseball that need talented individuals to make the sport persist. He’s not just a guy who types stats into a computer to display on a scoreboard, he’s also got a lengthy background in television, having won three Emmy awards as part of the Quick Pitch crew on MLB Network.
He also loves traveling and takes full advantage of the offseason schedule to fly all over the globe. When I interviewed him, he was in Colombia, which makes him the second person I’ve interviewed while they’re visiting that country. Here’s the first one:
We talked about falling in love with baseball growing up in family of baseball fans going back a couple generations, working in sports media, and the Mets.
You can follow him on Twitter here: @searlebaseball, or check out his personal website on baseball here: https://searlebaseball.com/
Baseball in New England
Are you from the New York area?
No, I grew up in New England. I grew up in Connecticut. My dad is a Mets fan. He was born in 1962, which is the first year of the Mets. So he just gravitated towards the scrappy underdogs, even though his father was a Yankees fan. My dad decided to choose the upstart expansion team. Even though they were historically bad, 120 losses in ‘62. And then he passed that on to me.
You guys go back generations of baseball fans. Is that how you got into the sport?
I chose the Mets because of my dad, but he wasn't really the one who got me into it. I was born in 1993 and when I was around 8 years old, 2001, was when I started to really get into the sport. That was when Barry Bonds set the home run record and then you had the classic World Series between the Yankees and the Diamondbacks, lot of walk-off wins and dramatic comebacks. That was when I started to collect baseball cards. I had an Upper Deck lamp where you could put the baseball card in the lamp.
My dad, from then on, would buy me complete Topps baseball card sets every year. Every Christmas I'd see a big book under the tree. I'd be like, I know what that is, that's my Topps baseball card set.
You started following after the Subway Series?
Yeah, I didn't really watch the 2000 Mets that much. Didn't watch that Subway Series, unfortunately. My Mets fandom is very much post-2000. I didn't have to endure the pain of losing to the Yankees, so I avoided that at least.
Did you play baseball growing up?
I played up until I was about 15 years old. Played Babe Ruth baseball. First baseman, caught a little bit. I really liked playing catcher, I like throwing out base stealers trying to get to second. I’m not the most talented athlete in the world, but I feel like I found my niche as a contact hitter, a leadoff hitter in Little League, I would take a lot of walks. Part of it was 'cause my dad would throw me tennis balls in the backyard and that's how I would practice hitting. And so I'd hit tennis balls into the neighbor's yard sometimes. But you know, it's hard to throw tennis balls, so my dad would sometimes be a little bit wild with his pitches, and that helped me develop my eye at the plate. I ‘til I was about 15, and then dudes started throwing curveballs and I could not recognize a curveball to save my life. At that point, the game had kind of passed me by.
Do you have any fun memories of Shea Stadium?
I went to a few games. It wasn't the easiest living in Connecticut. But my father would try to bring me to a game every once in a while. I went to a game in ‘07. They played against the A's. Jose Reyes had a Little League home run first, first at bat of the game. It was a ball that dropped in front of the right fielder, and it was a misplay, so he was able to get an inside-the-park home run out of it. I remember a game in ‘08 that was Oliver Perez versus Jamie Moyer. It was right in the throes of the Mets-Phillies rivalry at that time. It was a big game and Carlos Delgado, I believe, had the go ahead hit and David Wright slid into home and he did a fist pump. The Mets won that game and they ended up being in first place after that game, I remember that one really well.
Did you go to the Hartford minor league team? They’re the Yard Goats now?
Yeah, you have the Hartford Yard Goats, who I believe are the triple-A affiliate of the Rockies. Growing up, actually this is another reason I got into baseball, not just Major League Baseball, but for a long time, the double-A affiliate of the Yankees was the Norwich Navigators. It was pretty close to where I grew up, like a 30-minute drive. They played at Dodd Stadium and their mascot was Tater the Gator. I just remember having so much fun going to Navigator games. And because they were the Yankees affiliate, anytime the Yankees had a player who had a minor league rehab stint, they would play for the Navigators.
I loved going to those games. I had birthday parties at Navigators games. And then I think around ‘06 they rebranded. They went from being the Yankees affiliate to being the San Francisco Giants double-A affiliate and they rebranded as the Connecticut Defenders, which was upsetting to me because I loved them being the Navigators and their mascot being Tater the Gator. That was very upsetting to me. And then after a while, they were the single-A affiliate of the Tigers, and they became the Connecticut Tigers. And by that point I was in college and had moved away, stopped going to games at that point. Minor League Baseball's a great way to get into baseball.
Minor League Baseball is definitely my favorite kind of baseball. The players are still very good, the stadiums are smaller and more affordable, it always feels relaxing and fun like a night at the county fair. Hopefully MiLB and independent leagues are able to keep enduring as long as fiscally possible. Also, I did research, Tater the Gator did survive the various rebrands, even though I don’t think there are any native alligators in Connecticut?
Also, throwing tennis balls for strikes is impossible. But I credit Matthew, it’s hard to be a 9-year-old drawing walks. If it was thrown in my general direction I would swing Vladimir Guerrero style. The only time I ever walked in Little League was when I was hit by a pitch. My brother was obsessed with drawing walks though, said he had to get his OBP up even though with his lack of speed (my dad said he was lugging a piano to first base with him), he wasn’t scoring without a couple base hits.
A Career in Baseball Entertainment
You've been working for the Mets since ’18, and baseball since ‘15. So right out of college, right?
When I was at Emerson my senior year, MLB Network was sending recruiters out to various Boston schools. I did an interview and they were looking for a highlights editor, but my portfolio was more written work. I had written guest pieces for my friends sports website and baseball commentary. So I showed those writing pieces and they were impressed, would you be interested in interviewing as a researcher? So I worked at MLB Network for seven full seasons, won a couple Emmys there. And that was a lot of fun, mostly worked on Quick Pitch as a researcher.
Did you have a background in statistics or research before that?
I didn't have any background in statistics. I think my writing showed an ability to research. In college, I did several internships that kind of set me on this path. First one was for SABR (Society for American Baseball Research). I did a publishing internship there. I also did other sports-related things when I was at Emerson, I did play-by-play and hosting pregame shows, some on-camera stuff for volleyball games and basketball games on Emerson Channel Sports. Those experiences gave me enough background to say, OK, this guy can work in the television environment.
Your whole life has been geared towards being in sports. Was that by design?
I'm unusual in that I don't follow other sports that closely. I just love baseball, I've always loved baseball. I've dedicated so much of my life to it. I knew I either wanted to work in baseball, if possible, or some kind of entertainment. I did an LA internship when I was at Emerson, did script coverage for a movie production company. Found that wasn't really my style, and I wasn't as much of a West Coast person. I found I gravitated more towards the New York business environment.
The fact that there was the opening at MLB Network was huge. I had also been a big fan of the network specifically, so when I went into the interview, I was like, oh, yeah, I'm a fan of Greg Amsinger, I love the commentary of Harold Reynolds, Prime Nine's one of my favorite shows. I wasn't just blowing smoke; I really enjoyed these shows and so the fact that I was passionate about the network itself I think also helped me.
You were doing the Mets and MLB at the same time. They're nearby, right?
MLB Network, which also shares a building with NHL Network, is located in Secaucus, NJ. I was living in New Jersey, in the Newark area, like a 20-minute drive from the MLB Network studios. I started with MLB Network and then I got recommended for the Mets job. I worked my MLB Network schedule around the Mets home games. Any day that I'm not working for the Mets, I'll work here at the network. I was balancing those two jobs, living in New Jersey. And it wasn't the easiest commute. I had to either take the train, which could take over an hour, or drive, which could be 45 minutes to an hour-and-a-half to two hours, depending on traffic. New York traffic is awful. After a while, I decided that I want to focus on the Mets, and I moved out of New Jersey and to where I currently am in Queens, much closer to the ballpark.
When it comes to researching stats, how much of that is your brain thinking, ‘this is an interesting fact’, or how much of that is other people saying, ‘can you look this up?’
It kind of differs based on the job. At MLB Network, there was a lot stuff that was needed for the show, and that was based on whatever games were going on. A Subway Series game, I'd be looking up history of the Subway Series, all the relevant stats, most home runs in the Subway Series, anything that could possibly turn into a graphic or interesting bit of script that we could include on the show.
With the Mets, I have a lot more freedom to just ask questions on my own. Like in 2022, Francisco Lindor had a 10-game RBI streak. Where does that rank in Mets history in terms of longest RBI streaks? A lot of it is what I'm interested in and what I think would be interesting for the fans. I do kind of, just as a fan, ask a lot of these questions myself and that drives a lot of the work that I do.
You gotta keep it interesting. I remember growing up, we’d go to A's games, and that was back when they just had the little LCD screen and there's like 2 lines they could write. And they'd say, on Monday afternoon games in May, Geronimo Berroa is hitting .425. It's like, who’s thinking about that?
When I was at the network, we had a connection with Elias Sports Bureau, they would send us a lot of daily notes, emails. I remember one time there was something, Francisco Lindor has the highest average on Wednesdays since breaking into the big leagues in 2015. And in 2021, his first season with the Mets, he got off to a very bad start, wasn't hitting at all, he was under the Mendoza Line for a while. And so I did a note, because he had a couple hits on a Wednesday, I called him “Hump Day Hero”. And I was like, Francisco Lindor is hitting .347 on Wednesdays in his career. It wasn't something that I would have come up with on my own, but the fact that it had been sent to us by Elias made me think it was kind of interesting. I remember putting that on the board and I also tweeted that out. Some people were like, huh, interesting; and other people were like, this is just garbage, this is meaningless. Sometimes you get those fun little notes and you share them and see what the reaction is.
Do players ever react to anything you put up there? You guys have a giant scoreboard, it’s staring them right in the face.
Players a lot of times are not aware of their own stats, they're not aware of streaks or things like that. Jeff McNeil, for example, we did something about him having a very high average against the Phillies, and he remarked on that. When he became the fastest to 200 hits in Mets history, we put a graphic leaderboard with headshots of different players. I don't think he was aware of that.
What do you do in the offseason?
This is the question of all questions. I'm currently traveling in Colombia. I've been in South America for a little bit. I started in Peru for a month and then decided to go to Colombia for Christmas 'cause I heard there were beautiful Christmas lights in Medellin. The last few years have been a transition for me because I was working both MLB Network and the Mets for a while. Then in 2022, I realized that it was too much to balance, so I quit MLB Network. The last couple offseasons I've been doing a lot of solo travel because I also broke up with my girlfriend.
So I've been on my own last couple offseasons, but I've done some cool travel. Last year I did Southeast Asia: Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines, Hong Kong. That was really cool. Obviously money doesn't last. So now I'm transitioning, I'm only a seasonal employee for the Mets. I'm working with a career coach right now and taking a class so that I can secure a remote job and then I can keep doing what I'm doing, which is living in New York during the baseball season and then travel during the offseason.
So you're an Emmy winner? Besides putting that on your dating profiles, how fun was that?
You know me too well, Sir. It's really nice because now, whenever I do some kind of group activity, they're like all right, go around the room and say one interesting fact about you, I can always be, like I'm a three-time Emmy winner.
You have the actual trophy?
I do. You win the award and then they mail them to you afterwards.
Did you know going in that that was even something you could win?
No, I honestly didn't. I didn't consider awards at all. I just wanted to break into Major League Baseball and the entertainment industry. I remember speaking with one of my co-workers and he was like, I got all these Emmys on the shelf. And I was like, wait, you've won Emmys? We get nominated for Sports Emmys every year. After my first year there, getting the Emmy was just unbelievable 'cause I was only a year out of college at that point.
I imagine winning Emmy awards right out of college has to be like winning the World Series as a rookie. Your career is 100% excellence already! Also, if you check in on the Mets on social media at all throughout the season, you’ll inevitably come across the Mets scoreboard and something Matthew put up there. The fancier the scoreboards get, the better these little tidbits get. I’m impressed he’s able to get 81 games of info out there. That’s a lot of material to put together, and you can’t be wrong once.
There was a story about a player being superstitious about the stats on the scoreboard and asking to have certain things omitted. Ballplayers are a unique demographic.
All Things Mets
What hooked you about baseball and keeps you hooked?
I think it's the romantic aspect of the game, the poetry of it. A great baseball game will teach you different life lessons. You know you can go 0/4 with four strikeouts but come up in the bottom of the ninth and the bases are loaded and it's down to you to get that one hit. You get that hit, it doesn't matter what you did in your first 4 at bats. It's very cliche, even the most talented hitters fail 7 out of 10 times. These are the kind of lessons that I like to take through my life. When I feel like I've come up short in something, I tell myself I still have a high batting average. Maybe I failed 7 out of 10 times, but those three times where I've come through, I made those times count. So that's one aspect of it.
Also I love that it's everyday. Football, obviously is very geared towards TV. You can schedule your Sunday and block off a few hours to watch your favorite football team, and then you're talking about that one game the entire week. Baseball, it just changes day-to-day. I always liken it to an unscripted soap opera and you're tuning in every night to see what the script is gonna be. So many things that change around a baseball season: injuries, roster moves, rookies coming up. With the Mets this past season, we had Jose Iglesias release a pop song. Stuff that is just totally, totally unpredictable.
The statistical stuff that I get into, there's just a lot of variables to really comb through. I always talk about when you look at data, when it comes to baseball, you can separate it by so many different factors. Was it a day game? Was it a night game? Was it a home game? Was it an away game? Was it against a left-handed pitcher? Was it against a right-handed pitcher? What was the temperature? Was it played in a dome? All these type of things that differentiate each different play within a game. Other sports, which I call perpetual motion sports where the ball is constantly being moved and you're trying to get it into the goal or the end zone or whatever, those are usually differentiated by the clock. Baseball again, yes, the inning counts, but there are just so many other factors. Every moment in a baseball season progresses to a larger moment, which is then part of something even bigger. There's so many things that are kind of small, and then they build up to something a lot larger, and that's something I really like about baseball.
Speaking of soap operas, last season had to be one of the most fun seasons for you to be a part of. You had Grimace, the playoff pumpkin, you had the first pitch, lady, who we don't need to talk about, the OMG song. And you weren't expected to do be a playoff team.
Last year was one of the most fun non-World Series winning teams in Mets history. And certainly I would say the most fun team that I've covered. 2018 I started with the Mets, but 2019 was my first full season. That was a fun team. Peta Alonso set the rookie home run record that season, and they had a lot of great comeback wins. It was a fun team, but they didn't make the postseason that year. So this year you had all that fun stuff, Grimace, Iglesias and OMG, we had a veteran at the game named Seymour Wiener on Opening Day, which was very funny.
And so all these extra elements that came together, these fun elements that just arose naturally and organically, and then the fans ended up feeding off of them and then the players also fed off what the fans were doing. It was just incredible. We had so many moments throughout the year that were just unpredictable, but they were great surprises for the fans. We had Jose Iglesias perform the song, OMG, after a game against the Astros. It was decided before the game, he's going to perform it if we win. So we won the game, everybody was rooting for us to win the game because we want to see Jose Iglesias perform.
During the postseason, we had The Temptations come in and they performed My Girl, which is Francisco Lindor’s walk-up song. They also performed the national anthem. That was something that was also very unexpected. I guess they were on tour and someone said, oh, Francisco Lindor’s using My Girl as a walk-up song. And so that came about naturally as a result of that. And at Citi Field we’re also always experimenting with different technology. We do a lot of lighting effects for like closer entrances, like Edwin Diaz coming in with the lighting effects in addition to “Narco” playing over the speakers and the trumpets. Everything just came together, and to be able to experience that and then get to the postseason made it an incredibly special season.
There's still a dynamic where the Mets fans are like the little brother. Do you guys still embrace that? It seems like for Mets fans and players, there is more of this kind of stuff. Still wanting to win obviously, but more of an easygoing nature, whereas the Yankees are buttoned up, shave your face and focus on the game.
The Yankees are the white-collar team and the Mets are the blue collar team. We are the working class team. Yes, the perception has shifted since Steve Cohen bought the team because he’s the wealthiest owner in sports and he's willing to spend outrageous amounts of money on one player. I think the Mets as an organization were more willing to embrace stuff that we just think is fun for the fans. The Yankees have a few things like that, they play Cotton-eyed Joe, the groundskeepers at Yankee Stadium do YMCA. I think it's a little corny. I also think what the Mets were willing to push the envelope in terms of having a fun fan experience. We're not worried about, are people going to say that's it's not something that a prestigious organization would do. We just think about, hey, how can we entertain the fans?
The Yankees did have a mascot at one point named Dandy. It was very short-lived, the 80s or early 70s. But the Mets, a huge part of the identity is Mr. Met. And in more recent years, especially since the Cohens bought the team, Mrs. Met has played a more prominent role. It’s not just Mr. Met anymore. It's Mr. and Mrs. Met. They come as a package deal, so we've embraced that. Last year, we introduced the Queens Crew, which is a dance team on top of the dugout. We do very detailed in-game shows. A lot of what I'm responsible for is writing scripts for our in-game trivia.
How have things changed under the new ownership?
A lot of stuff has changed. There have been a lot of improvements in the ballpark. There are a lot more screens in the ballpark. For example, now when you go through the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, you have these LCD screens with head shots of the players of the starting lineup. When you're going up the stairs, you see the players that are in the the starting lineup and there are motion graphics to represent that. The lighting effects is a big thing that we've done. And another thing that I think is huge is embracing team history. Before the 2022 season, they unveiled the Tom Seaver statue, which is now very popular. And he is “The Franchise”. It's something I think that should have been done a lot sooner and unfortunately he had passed away by that point, but we were still able to honor him and I think that was great. We've done a lot more in terms of bringing back alumni for games. We've had even just somewhat obscure players like Butch Huskey come back from games. Todd Hundley. Guys that were kind of forgotten about. Not necessarily part of championship teams, but were more fan favorites than they were maybe all-time Mets greats. So there's been a lot more attention to history and appreciating that, and trying to grow the Met community.
Who's your favorite Met of all time?
My first favorite player was Mike Piazza. So 2001, like I said, I got into baseball. That was also the first year I went to a baseball game so. My dad's work, they had a school bus and you just got on the school bus and they drove us the 2-3 hours to New York to Shea Stadium. It was a game against the Red Sox. And it wasn't a very exciting game, it was a 1-0 Mets win. Glendon Rusch pitched for the Mets and it was Bobby Valentine's 1000th win as a manager. It was somewhat historically significant. I remember it was a Sunday game, a day game after a night game. And I remember being so disappointed that Mike Piazza was not in the lineup because at that time I didn't understand baseball well enough to be like, oh, catchers don't catch a day game after a night game. Like, why is Vance Wilson playing and not Mike Piazza? Mike Piazza was my first favorite player. All-time, probably say Johan Santana. Huge Johan fan. Also Curtis Granderson. Right now it's Francisco Lindor, I even loved him when he was with Cleveland, so Lindor might be my all-time favorite player.
It was awesome talking to Matthew, we had a few side conversations about baseball writing and making a career out of the sport without actually needing a glove. He’s a nice guy and takes pride in his work, which obviously has paid off with his efforts helping win awards and elevate the gameday experience at Citi Field. Now I’ve just gotta get back to a game and see what that day’s nuggets are.