If it was up to Boston Red Sox reliever Matt Barnes, Don Orsillo would return to the NESN broadcast booth to call games.
On Thursday, Barnes did an Instagram Live session from Florida Gulf Coast University, where several Red Sox players are working out since major-leaguers are locked out of team facilities. (Gulf Coast is in Fort Myers, Florida, where the Red Sox train, but Chris Sale is also an alum.)
During the live video, a fan asked Barnes whom he’d like to replace the late Jerry Remy in the Red Sox TV broadcast booth. (Remy passed away last October after a long off-and-on struggle with lung cancer.) Barnes immediately answered that he’d like the team to bring back Don Orsillo.
That would surely be enormously popular with Red Sox fans, who probably felt Barnes was speaking for them with that answer. Orsillo was let go by NESN after the 2015 season, following 15 years with the team. The network decided to hire Dave O’Brien as its TV play-by-play voice and didn’t renew Orsillo’s contract. It was a baffling decision, not just because of Orsillo’s popularity but because there was seemingly no reason for NESN to make the move.
Orsillo eventually landed with then-Fox Sports San Diego to call San Diego Padres broadcasts, a position he still holds and figures to for years to come. However, Orsillo is in the final year of the six-year contract he signed with now-Bally Sports San Diego. If Barnes knew that, his suggestion was particularly savvy.
Upon hearing of Barnes’s endorsement, Orsillo said on Twitter that, while flattered, he’s very happy with the Padres. (Is a new contract on the way?)
Besides referring to his current team as “my” Padres, Orsillo may also have indicated his true feelings on the situation by liking a tweet that said the Red Sox (or NESN) “blew it” by letting him go.
Barnes probably wasn’t thinking of this, but to get nerdy (or “well, actually”) about it, Orsillo likely wouldn’t take Remy’s role as analyst anyway. Dennis Eckersley is expected to move up to lead analyst on the Red Sox broadcasts with O’Brien remaining on play-by-play. And as popular as Orsillo was, and baffling as his dismissal was, O’Brien is an excellent broadcaster who certainly deserves to continue in his role.