Jerry Remy Passes Away
The center of Red Sox nation dies of cancer
I grew up outside Washington DC before the Nationals moved from Montreal. The local team was the Baltimore Orioles and I listened to every Orioles game on a small walkman radio under my covers well past my bedtime. The Orioles were the Orioles, meaning they weren’t very good. They had Cal Ripken and Eddie Murray so that was at least interesting, but what drew me in wasn’t future Hall of Famers, the silly grinning bird on the hat, or any of the pomp and circumstance of the team. It was Jon Miller.
Miller was the play-by-play voice of the Orioles on the radio at the time. To 10-year-old me, his voice, his sense of humor, the way he spoke, the way he laughed, that was baseball.
A few years later the Orioles fired Miller. New owner Peter Angelos wanted someone less critical of the team. That was the end of my time as an Orioles fan.
The players matter. They are the team, they make the plays, they create the moments we rejoice in and remember. But the soundtrack to those moments? That come from announcers. Announcers are the connective tissue between the team and its fans. It’s a relationship, a connection unparalleled in sport, and the luckiest among us get to be not only fans of a baseball team but fans of those who bring us that baseball. In some cases, the love for the people who bring us that game might approach or even exceed the love for the team.
Which brings me to Jerry Remy. Nobody did more to earn the bond between fan and announcer than Remy, who died Saturday of cancer at the age of 68.
Remy started broadcasting Red Sox games in 1988, before the internet, before electric cars and airbags, before the the Red Sox were the most World Series-winningest team in the American League. The majority of the world wasn’t born when Remy started doing Red Sox games. It’s a fair guess that the majority of Red Sox fans weren’t yet Red Sox fans when Remy started doing Red Sox games. To most Red Sox fans, Remy was the Red Sox in a way that Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz, or Xander Bogaerts couldn’t be.
But it wasn’t longevity that earned Remy the love of Red Sox fans. Remy had a way of laughing at himself that was disarming and so completely enjoyable. Baseball is a game of failure and, though he played a decade in the majors, Remy experienced his share. What made him different was his willingness to talk about it, to discuss it, to make making fun of himself the focus of the broadcast. He wasn’t whining or complaining, he was teaching through humor.
There are a lot of Remy highlights bouncing around the internet and it strikes me that most if not all of them are Remy broadcasting seemingly random games. Some of that is because local announcers don’t get to do World Series or ALCS games, but a lot of that has to do with Remy himself. It’s not that he couldn’t explain the running game, or discuss pitching strategy like an expert. He could do those things and far more. But his true gift, what made him exceptional, was the ability to make run-of-the-mill baseball games hilarious.
I remember watching the Here Comes The Pizza game and convulsing in laughter. It was a Red Sox/Angels game in April. There shouldn’t be much funny about it, but it was about the funniest thing I’d ever seen. It was milk-coming-out-my-nose funny, and I hasn’t even had any milk. I had just about composed myself after the commercial break when Remy and the great Don Orsillo came back for the next inning and almost immediately started diagraming the pizza throw. If you haven’t seen it, or even if you have, do yourself a favor and watch it again.
There are highlight packages put together by fans that are absolutely worth your time, too, like this one.
And (last one, I promise), here’s one where Don tries to (I think?) use a bag of tools to extract one of Remy’s teeth… during the broadcast!
Remy had a gift for making the mundane funny and it was our gift to watch him do it on television for 30 years while watching our favorite baseball team. I should be happy for the experience, and I am, but I’m also filled with sadness. I’m sad for his family’s loss, for the loss by his friends, and for the loss experienced by the people who worked with him on NESN broadcasts. I’m sad for my loss as well. I never met Jerry Remy but he was my friend for as long as I’ve been a Red Sox fan. I bet he was your friend too. I’m sorry for your loss.
Red Sox broadcasts won’t ever be the same. They can’t be. Remy won’t be there to laugh, to make the 113th game of the year hilarious and fun in some bizarre way, like giving Don Orsillo a big lamp, teaching him how to use the intermittent wipers in his car, or just trading stories with Dennis Eckersley about their playing careers. As is often the case, it’s the mundane stuff I’ll miss most, the little items that mark the time. Like how on every broadcast Remy would wish us a good evening in Spanish. I’ll really miss that.
Remy wasn’t just a broadcaster, of course. He played 10 years in the majors, seven with the Red Sox. He grew up a Red Sox fan, used to go to Red Sox games with his grandpa, and even rushed the field at Fenway once as a kid. It was his dream to play for the Red Sox and he did it. But as amazing a story as that is, players come and go in this game. Outside of the occasional David Ortiz or Pedro Martinez, their impact is mostly muted. That might have been Remy’s future too had he been a minor league coach, a car dealer, or gone on to do something else.
It might have been dumb luck that Remy stumbled into the Red Sox broadcaster gig after his playing days were over, but it wasn’t his dumb luck. It was ours.
Buenas noches, amigo. You are now and will forever be missed.
If you want to read more on Remy, I highly recommend Chad Finn’s exceptional pieces in the Boston Globe. First, a eulogy that covers Remy’s career and puts into words far better than I can what made him truly great. Read that here. Second, a piece about Remy’s friendship with fellow Red Sox broadcaster and baseball Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley. Read that here.
Thanks so much, Matt. Possibly the best thing I've read by you.
I'm one of those older fans who remembers Remy very well as a player, so my perspective is a little different. (By the way, we did have airbags before 1988, although they weren't yet required).
I also share your view of Jon Miller, my all-time favorite baseball broadcaster. Miller was part of the Red Sox radio broadcasting team with Joe Castiglione in the early 1980s, before his days in Baltimore. We used to pray for rain delays so Jon could do his impressions.
Remy was indeed one of us (a Sox fan AND a New Englander), which explains his appeal. But I think it was his basic modesty and self-deprecating manner that people really responded to.
He was also one incredibly unlucky SOB. It wasn't enough to tear up his knee once; he had to do it multiple times, and endure numerous surgeries that shortened his career. He was treated for cancer SEVEN freakin' times. And I won't even discuss the heartache involving his son and grandchild.
And through it all, he persevered. Rest in peace, Jerry.
A few weeks back I rewatched that infamous 1978 Playoff & the 9th inning Lou Piniella "lost it into the Sun lucky snatch" could have so easily rolled to the fence & Jerry could have been an even bigger Folk Hero than he already was & it may just have been 60 years, rather than 86 ?
It was 1 of THE moments of the 20th Century for The Red Sox - a what might have been classic ..... obviously, we will never know ..... but Jerry came oh so close to changing history on the field & had to settle for changing it off the field !
A Very Sad Loss
A Life Well Lived
A Legend Never To Be Forgotten