"Merloni and Middlebrooks don’t hedge from criticizing when circumstances call for it."
I was convinced in those few glorious years when they shared a broadcast booth, and I’m more convinced now that those days are five years gone:
We’ll never hear a more satisfying baseball broadcast than we did when Jerry Remy and Dennis Eckersley worked together in the booth. Their peak together — along with play-by-play voice Dave O’Brien — occurred when some of us were at our lowest, during the pandemic in the abbreviated 2020 season. Remy and Eckersley individually had charisma and candor in abundance. Together, it was multiplied, especially when they talked openly about their own insecurities during their playing days,
Remy died in October 2021. Eckersley retired following the 2022 season to spend more time with his grandchildren. I still catch myself wondering what they would have to say on a daily basis about this disjointed Red Sox team.
As much as they are missed, though, this must be said: The Red Sox have gotten it right with their color analysts in both the television and radio booths. Lou Merloni, the main NESN analyst, has the same ability Remy had to anticipate what and why something will happen. I’m convinced he would have been a fine manager had he taken that path.
On the radio side (most of the time), Will Middlebrooks has become a very easy listen. One of the things he does uncommonly well is present analytics in an unobtrusive way, such as offhandedly noting Thursday night that Red Sox starter Payton Tolle had thrown some version of his fastball 96 percent of the time in that particular game, an unusually high number.
Yes, there’s a little too much boosterism on both broadcasts, an epidemic everywhere in sports. But Merloni and Middlebrooks don’t hedge from criticizing when circumstances call for it, and circumstances have called for it pretty much on a nightly basis this season.
There will never be another Eck/Remy duo. But Merloni and Middlebrooks deserve a tip of the cap for the analysts they’ve become.
Station change
Friday was Adam 12’s (Adam Chapman) final day as executive producer of 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Toucher and Hardy morning show. The station announced Thursday that he’s moving to WROR — also owned by Beasley Media — to co-host in the mornings with Lauren Beckham Falcone, beginning Monday.
The move makes sense on a couple of levels. Adam 12 is a longtime Boston radio on-air personality, best known by many for his time at the late, great WBCN. (He’s always a Radio BDC guy to me, first and foremost.) He ended up at the Sports Hub in September 2024 after his on-air role at Rock 92.9 (also a Beasley station) ended when the signal was switched to Bloomberg Radio.
Adam 12, who was already good friends with hosts Fred Toucher and Rob “Hardy” Poole, proved a perfect fit on the show. His upbeat nature — he’s one of the most authentically decent people I’ve come across in many years covering sports media — and discipline helped it find its bearings after the messy departure of Rich Shertenlieb a few months earlier.
“Leaving is bittersweet,’’ Adam 12 said in a text Thursday afternoon. “I got to make radio with my buddies every morning and laugh my [butt] off. But this was too good of an opportunity to pass up.” He said on Friday’s show that the new role comes with a bump in pay, a rare occurrence in radio nowadays.
It’s unclear right now who will be elevated into the executive producer role.
More SI layoffs
The Sports Illustrated that Generation X and older grew up with ceased to exist several ownership changes and personnel bloodlettings ago. The magazine that we used to anticipate showing up in our mailboxes every Thursday afternoon has been relegated to a monthly, supporting an array of relentless popup ads thinly disguised as a website. But SI has managed through it all to keep a talented if small core of writers on staff. Unfortunately, several of those survivors lost their jobs in yet another soulless corporate slashing on Friday. Among the outstanding writers let go: Stephanie Apstein, Michael Rosenberg, Greg Bishop, and Mike McDaniel. All of them did excellent work for a place that in many ways was no longer worthy of them.
Lots of eyes watching
I’m fascinated to see what the Nielsen ratings and viewership numbers look like for Saturday night’s Game 7 showdown between the Spurs and Thunder on ESPN. At this writing, the final viewership data for Games 5-6 isn’t available. But through the first four games, the series has averaged 9.6 million viewers, including 10.3 million for Game 4. It is on track to be the most watched Western Conference finals on record, though that designation will come with a caveat since Nielsen changed several aspects of its methodology in recent years, including finally including out-of-home viewing.