January 16, 2020.
Imagine a time before COVID. No masks, no social distancing, a time where congregating inside during a winter evening was normal.
That night I was working at the annual Baseball Writers’ Dinner hosted in Boston. One of the honorees that night was no other than Red Sox legend Jerry Remy… more on that later.
Jerry Remy wore many Red Sox hats during his life.
He grew up in Massachusetts. He was traded to the Red Sox prior to the 1978 season after 3 years with the California Angels. He was an All-Star in 1978, and went on to play 7 seasons with his hometown team. A few years later he made the move to the broadcast booth, calling Red Sox games for 33 years on NESN. He spent time as the president of Red Sox Nation. He had a restaurant just outside of Fenway Park.
If you were born in Boston the past 40 years, odds are Jerry Remy is the voice you associate with the Boston Red Sox.
He was an institution.
For me, it was listening to Jerry Remy and Don Orsillo. When I think about how I fell in love with sports, the voices I hear in the background are those of Orsillo and Remy. My earliest memories of sports fandom involve watching Red Sox games with them on the air.
It wasn’t always about the games of course. RemDawg and Orsillo gave us plenty of moments to just laugh at.
Absolutely nothing to do with baseball here, but as a fan you had to love it; I certainly did.
I was disappointed in 2015 when it was announced Orsillo would no longer be announcing Red Sox games once the season ended. It felt like a part of my childhood was being taken away from me, it didn’t seem fair… but at least you’d still see Orsillo on air (or highlights of him) in San Diego from time to time.
Today I’m devastated, as this is the true end of an era.
It’s no secret the battles Jerry Remy had fought with cancer the past 14 years. He was a warrior. To go through this 7 times… he never stopped living, even in his final weeks, and it is something I will always admire about him.
One day my Freshman year of high school we had an early release day and some of my friends and I visited our teachers from middle school. I remember joking with one of them “I don’t like change.”
She replied, “Well you’re not gonna like high school.”
Well change is hard! Life is full of change, and unfortunately one of those changes that we all have to deal with is someone no longer being in our lives. It’s never easy.
Before he passed, I was lucky enough to meet Jerry Remy.
As I said earlier, Remy was being honored at an event I was working at on January 16, 2020. After the event had ended and Remy had given a very nice speech, everyone began to filter out of the ballroom of the hotel we were at.
I stood up in the back of the room waiting for my next assignment and I happened to see Remy walking towards the general area I was in. We didn’t cross paths perfectly, but I saw a moment to speak to one of my childhood idols, so I approached him. I tapped him on the shoulder and simply said, “Mr. Remy, congratulations.”
He looked at me and thanked me.
It couldn’t have lasted more than three seconds, but it was a special moment for a lifelong Boston sports fan to have just a moment with the RemDawg.
For all the changes we experience in this life, I’ll never forget that brief moment I had with Jerry Remy.
Rest in Peace, RemDawg.