Broadcasting baseball is about telling the stories at the major league level. 

That is why the Yankees and Mets broadcasters and producers must eventually return to traveling on the road if top executives at SNY and YES want to crow about how they have the top baseball productions in the land. 

SNY president Steve Raab and YES Network president of programming and production John Filippelli both said their telecasts were the best in separate conversations with The Post regarding when and how their announcers will be perched at road ballparks in the future. 

We spoke to the executives, but their actions, and those of their bosses, will speak louder. Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez are now scheduled to be in Washington over Labor Day weekend for a five-game series as SNY will experiment by broadcasting games using fewer people on the road than it did pre-pandemic. 

While Raab tried not to classify it this way, this is a slimmed-down, cloud-based production that could be used to reduce future costs. 

Filippelli, meanwhile, looked at the September schedule and said he thinks YES could go to Citi Field in the middle of next month and then possibly end the season in Boston and Toronto. Nothing, however, is set. 

Can YES really not go crosstown for one game when the Yankees face the Mets on Sept. 10? (The other two Subway Series games are on Fox and ESPN). 

Fox, ESPN (on Sunday night) and TBS (on Sunday afternoons) all have their broadcasters at games. 

In fairness to SNY and YES, covering local teams with relentless schedules and full series, is more onerous than the one-offs of national broadcasts. But no one is saying to travel full-time right now. 

The Cubs’ new network, Marquee, is calling road games on-site mostly within the Central time zone. It is alone and setting the standard. 

Raab and Filippelli admitted that business is a factor behind the decisions. 

“I would say that in everything we do … is, of course, an economic consideration,” Raab said. 

The fact the Mets are not at 85 percent vaccination is not really the issue, Raab said. Rather, it is a combination of complicated issues involving travel, along with clearance issues from the other cities, teams and the league in each ballpark. 

But with broadcasters not on site, storytelling and knowledge are lost in the long term and the short term. 

On Sunday, Michael Kay, broadcasting for YES from The Bronx while the Yankees’ game took place in Chicago, said two runs scored on a ninth-inning hit when it was one. On Tuesday, at Yankee Stadium with the game in front of him, Kay had a great call on Wandy Peralta bouncing off the mound to make the play to end a sixth-inning threat, punctuating it with, “They got ’em! They got ’em! What a play by Peralta!” 

The production also is affected. On the road, YES and SNY are pretty much at the mercy of the home team’s usually inferior broadcasts. Nuance, like a scratched-out lineup card, is lost. 

Filippelli and Raab are both right about their broadcasters and producers doing a tremendous job to make the broadcasts look and sound as good as possible. It is a credit to their skill level to compensate during the pandemic. 

Filippelli, with six World Series under his belt, talked about George Steinbrenner’s mantra when they started YES two decades ago that the network be the “gold standard.” 

“I’m still up for traveling the announcers,” Filippelli said. “I am. I think it makes a better telecast. But do I think the days of us going to Seattle, fly everybody coast to coast at a tremendous expense that we have to incur for a game that starts at 10:30 at night, is over. I’d rather put my resources in Boston.” 

Ultimately, it will be up to Raab and his counterpart at YES, CEO Jon Litner. They can eventually prove it is not all about money. 

The new variants are, of course, a factor, and should not be taken lightly. If anyone is uncomfortable about going on the road, it is completely understandable and he or she should be respected. 

But if it is safe enough for teams to travel, for fans to be at games in full attendance, writers to be on the road and other networks to have their announcers at games, then the New York City networks will have to explain why they do not eventually act like major league operations. 

“During the pandemic, I think we have done a terrific job,” Raab said. “And however we end up doing it, after the pandemic, it is still going to be arguably the best baseball production out there. You have my word on that.”