OAN Staff Blake Wolf
2:19 PM – Wednesday, September 24, 2025
New York Mets play-by-play announcer Gary Cohen criticized Chicago Cubs player Matt Shaw for missing a game to attend Charlie Kirk’s funeral live on air.
Cohen spoke about Shaw’s recent absence during a Tuesday night broadcast of the Mets and Cubs game.
“I don’t want to talk about any of the politics of it, but the thought of leaving your team in the middle of a race for any reason other than a family emergency, really strikes me as weird,” Cohen stated during the broadcast.
“It’s unusual, I think it’s unprecedented at least from my experience as a player, and I think it made it a little more unusual that it was not revealed until after it came to issue because he was thought to be in the dugout and maybe available, and was not, and that’s how it was revealed,” added Mets broadcaster Todd Zeile.
Shaw responded to the criticism on Tuesday, revealing that he was asked to attend the funeral by Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk.
“My connection with Charlie was through our faith,” Shaw stated. “And that’s something that drives me every day, the reason why I’m able to do what I do every day, and that’s something I’m extremely thankful for.”
“I knew without my faith and without the many blessings I’ve been given in my life that I wouldn’t be here, be able to talk to you guys, able to help this team eventually go and win championships. That’s something I feel really, really blessed about, so whatever backlash comes is OK,” he added.
Additionally, Chicago outfielder Ian Happ was asked about Shaw’s decision to forgo a game in favor of attending the funeral, to which he responded: “For him to go and be a part of a celebration of life and grieve, from a human level, I understand it.”
“We’re baseball players, and that takes up a ton of our life, but there’s a huge human element to this game, and it’s really hard to lose a friend and really hard to lose someone you’re close to,” Happ added.
Online users took to social media to criticize Cohen’s on-air comments.
One user said, “What an incredibly stupid thing to say about Matt Shaw attending Charlie Kirk’s funeral. Baseball is a children’s game, not to mention the Cubs already were in the playoffs. He looks like an absolute POS tonight for that comment.”
“Hey Gary Cohen, it’s none of your business that Matt Shaw went to Charlie Kirk’s memorial service. They were friends. Why is this an issue? @Mets maybe don’t have this idiot talk about players on other teams. He should worry about the Mets,” another user responded.
“Gary Cohen just straight up calling Shaw ‘weird’ for being at Charlie Kirk’s funeral is not what I was expecting,” a third user added.
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