Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing #90 : Fran Healy: From Rizzuto's Booth to Kiner's Korner
Last week, “Sunday School” took a detour.
Howie Rose wasn't a Forgotten Face of Flushing. He was a Never to be Forgotten Face.
With Howie saying goodbye to the Mets after the 2026 season, it was only fitting that we devoted a special edition to the man whose voice has been part of the soundtrack of Mets baseball for nearly four decades.
But this week, we return to our regularly scheduled programming.
And we're staying behind the microphone.
This week, it's Fran Healy.
If you became a Mets fan during the 1980s, 1990s or early 2000s, there's a very good chance Fran Healy was part of the soundtrack of your Mets-watching life.
And yet, unlike Howie Rose, Bob Murphy or Ralph Kiner, Healy's name doesn't always get the recognition it deserves.
Maybe that's because Healy's Mets career ended quietly.
There was no Fran Healy Day.
No farewell tour.
No season-long countdown to his final broadcast.
No ceremonial first pitch.
No standing ovation at Shea Stadium.
Healy simply disappeared from the Mets television lineup after the 2005 season, when the club's new SportsNet New York era was about to begin.
And perhaps that's exactly why he belongs here.
Forgotten Faces of Flushing.
Before Fran Healy became a familiar face in the Mets television booth, he was a major league catcher.
Born September 6, 1946, Healy played parts of eight seasons in the majors with the Kansas City Royals, San Francisco Giants and New York Yankees.
His playing career included a couple of pretty remarkable footnotes.
Healy was behind the plate for both of Steve Busby's no-hitters with Kansas City — against Detroit in 1973 and Milwaukee in 1974.
He also became something of a clubhouse diplomat during his Yankees days, developing a close relationship with Reggie Jackson and serving as a go-between during the often combustible relationship between Jackson, manager Billy Martin and captain Thurman Munson.
When his playing career ended in 1978, Healy didn't leave baseball.
He just moved to the other side of the camera.
Healy began working on Yankees radio broadcasts after his playing career and added the club's cable television broadcasts in 1979.
Then came the move that would make him a part of Mets history.
In 1984, Fran Healy joined the Mets television team.
Think about that for a minute.
1984.
That was the year Dwight Gooden arrived.
Keith Hernandez was entering his first full season in New York.
Darryl Strawberry was beginning to blossom.
Davey Johnson was taking over as manager.
The Mets were transforming from a team that had been irrelevant for much of the late 1970s and early 1980s into the team that would eventually become the 1986 World Series champions.
And Fran Healy was there.
He remained there for the next 22 seasons, working Mets telecasts through 2005.
Twenty-two seasons.
That's an entire generation of Mets baseball.
Healy's Mets broadcasting career covered some remarkable territory.
He was there for the rise of Gooden and Strawberry.
He was there for the swaggering 1986 Mets.
He was there for the championships, the heartbreaks, the rebuilding years and the Bobby Valentine era.
He watched the franchise move from Shea Stadium's glory years into the next generation of Mets baseball.
And he did it while working alongside a rotating cast of some of the most recognizable voices in Mets broadcasting.
Ralph Kiner.
Tim McCarver.
Gary Thorne.
Keith Hernandez.
Howie Rose.
Tom Seaver.
Healy was one of the constants.
Of course, no Fran Healy retrospective would be complete without Keith Hernandez.
When Keith joined the Mets telecasts, Healy and Hernandez developed a relationship that could best be described as... complicated.
Their exchanges could be funny.
Sometimes playful.
Sometimes contentious.
And sometimes you weren't quite sure whether the two men were actually kidding.
That's part of what made those broadcasts memorable.
Long before Mets fans became accustomed to the chemistry of modern booths, Healy and Hernandez were providing their own version of television chemistry — with plenty of personality mixed in with the baseball.
And Healy wasn't simply a game announcer.
He also hosted Mets Inside Pitch and Halls of Fame, giving him another platform to tell stories and talk baseball beyond the three hours between the lines.
One of the more fascinating pieces of Healy's broadcasting résumé came in 1987, when he interviewed former President Richard Nixon during a Mets postgame show.
Think about that.
A former major league catcher who had already transitioned from Yankees baseball to Mets baseball, sitting across from a former president and talking about the national pastime.
Healy also had the distinction of being one of only three sportscasters who were regular announcers for both the Yankees and Mets.
The others?
Tom Seaver and Tim McCarver.
That's pretty exclusive company.
And here's another moment that deserves to be remembered.
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, baseball stopped.
When the Mets finally returned to Shea Stadium on September 21, the emotions were unlike anything most of us had ever experienced at a baseball game.
Fran Healy and Howie Rose were on the air together that night.
It was another important chapter in a broadcasting career that had already stretched across two decades.
And then it was over..
After the 2005 season, the Mets' television world changed dramatically.
SportsNet New York was coming.
The new SNY era would bring Gary Cohen, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez together in a booth that would become synonymous with Mets baseball for the next generation.
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