If Keith Hernandez wasn’t part of the best booth in baseball, maybe he would have been busy trying to create the best office in politics.

Hernandez joined the latest episode of Sources Tell Jeff Passan, where the New York Mets Hall of Famer admitted he never dreamed of having a second career in baseball as successful as his broadcasting career has been alongside Gary Cohen and Ron Darling on SNY.

For a while, Hernandez didn’t know what he would do when he finished playing. Hernandez retired in 1991, but it wasn’t until 1999 that he started working as a TV analyst. And if he had never landed in broadcasting, Gary Cohen joked that maybe Hernandez would eventually have decided to run for mayor. But apparently the joke wasn’t too far-fetched, because Hernandez recalled being pitched a career in politics.

“I was approached once by a guy in Brooklyn from the Republican Party,” Hernandez remembered. “He wanted me to run for local office. He said, ‘Would you be interested in running?’ I said, ‘No, I’m not interested in running for any political office. I’m not at all interested, but thank you.’ Can you imagine me in City Council. With that City Council in New York?”

Hernandez emphatically said, “No thanks” with a laugh to the idea of a career in politics or a stint as a Republican on the New York City Council. But while Hernandez may laugh at the idea of becoming a politician, he does like to drop the occasional Easter Egg on how he feels about people in office.

“I like to walk the razor’s edge where if I say something, it can be taken this way, or it can be taken that way, but if you get me in court, you can’t convict me,” Hernandez told Passan of his mindset on-air.

Sometimes, Hernandez isn’t quite as coy as he might intend to be. Everybody knows Hernandez’s political beliefs lean to the right. He’ll occasionally tease those beliefs during Mets broadcasts, like the time he made a “Democrat Party” quip or a gender-neutral joke. Hernandez has reinforced his political leanings by appearing on Tucker Carlson’s podcast or joining Fox News and Fox Business channels to express support for Donald Trump.

Hernandez, however, never had any interest in following the path that another former New York first baseman recently took. Mark Teixeira is currently a Republican congressional nominee. Who knows how far Hernandez could have gone if he had expressed interest in running for office years ago, as Teixeira has? But thankfully for Mets fans, Hernandez laughed off the idea of a political career and opted to form the best booth in baseball instead.

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