Familiar voices on tap for tonight’s Red Sox – Braves clash
The Red Sox are back on the road starting tonight in Atlanta after yet another disappointing homestand. With the team reeling and sitting firmly in the basement of the AL East, they’re looking for anything and everything to turn things around. Tonight’s series opener against the Braves on TBS might offer something in the way of a good luck charm.
Tuesday nights are national broadcast night on TBS and The Superstation has brought in some old friends of Red Sox Nation. Getting the play-by-play duties will be none other than Don Orsillo while Hazel Mae will be delivering the action from the field, per Christopher Smith of Mass Live. While many of us would normally watch the game on either NESN or MLB TV, I think the allure of hearing Orsillo call a Red Sox game may have many of us flipping to TBS.
This isn’t the first time Orsillo has been linked with the Sox so far in 2022 as the former voice of the team was omitted from Boston’s touching tribute to Jerry Remy. The two had been longtime broadcast partners and even closer friends.
As a mid-30s Red Sox fan, Don and Jerry were the soundtrack to my summers and it killed me to not see him involved at all in honoring Jerry. Then you add in everything that came out after and it made the situation even worse.
Some, and I may count myself in this group, have pegged leaving Don out of the ceremony as one of the catalysts for the disaster this season has become. Up until that point, the Red Sox had at least been treading water but since have been an absolute disaster.
It’s no secret that Orsillo’s split from NESN and essentially the Red Sox wasn’t a pretty one and the slight earlier this year was just another ugly chapter in the story.
For Hazel Mae, things ended a bit more friendly with the organization and NESN as she left for the MLB Network upon its launch. She was the longtime voice of the game down on the field but did much more within her broadcasting career. She anchored numerous shows on the NESN platform spanning multiple teams in Boston.
Again, her departure was far less messy than Don’s but she was also curiously missing from Remy’s ceremony. Considering she’s currently working for Sportsnet in Canada it was more than likely just travel issues. I know I wasn’t the only one that noticed she was missing from the gang of sideline reporters, but again, with the current state of travel in the world, it’s more than understandable.
Having her back, especially with Don, is going to be like hopping into a time machine and heading back to being a kid. Those two along with Jerry made even the worst of Red Sox teams enjoyable with their jokes and levity. I’m hoping we get some of that magic back, at least for tonight, because we all know this Boston team is not fun to watch at the moment. I know I’m excited to hear some of the gang back together and I’m sure I’m not alone in that feeling.