As much as I enjoyed having Orsillo here...
RIFan said:
For those who weren't around back then, the uproar today isn't much different than when McDonough was let go (other than social media impact). At the time, the games were on both over the air and NESN. As I recall, McDonough was marginalized by being given the smaller slate of over the air games. It was unimaginable that Orsillo would win out over McDonough when all the games were consolidated to NESN with a single crew handling all games. I distinctly recall Remy being on record as saying it has to be Sean getting the gig. Orsillo was viewed as bland and completely inferior to McDonough (who had a longer tenure than Orsillo does now). No one could have imagined the outpouring of support for Orsillo 10 years later.
The anguish will pass and everyone will move on. It absolutely sucks the way it's going down, but it will be forgotten much faster than you think.
Agreed on all of this.
Anyone thinking this is some traumatic thing that people are going to be up-in-arms about, I have to wonder how much they know/remember about the pre-Orsillo years.
Sean was tossed about in the wind a whole bunch. With the OTA games switching stations a number of times, more and more games being switched over to NESN, etc.
When it came time that Sean was let go, I distinctly remember Jerry speaking out strongly opposed to it. IIRC, it was in a game that went to a commercial break soon after, and he pretty much dropped it after the break, so he had probably gotten a harsh talking-to telling him to knock it off during the break.
And the first season or two with Orsillo often felt awkward, as Remy seemed to take offense with/take issue with a number of things that Don did and said (some rightly so. I recall Don saying at some point about someone that he [Don] could hit for a higher average than the player).
It was definitely a bumpy couple of years getting settled in, after a rather rocky breakup with Sean.
While I did like Don, and I will miss him, Red Sox broadcasting has definitely gone through more dramatic changes than this in the past, and yet we still all love to watch.