Top of the order…

I hear it all the time. And I know it. I am very fortunate to call the left side of the front row of the Home Radio Booth at Fenway Park my office. What a view! I am one of the very few who can claim the seat I have while splitting play-by-play duties with New England broadcasting legend, Joe Castiglione, in his 36th season calling Sox games and getting to describe the occasional Sox/Yankees bench clearing brawl.

In the recent past, I was settled in and very happy calling the Pittsburgh Pirates games on TV and radio for a number of seasons, but when the opportunity to come home to broadcast Red Sox Baseball was dangled in front of me in the fall of 2015, I had to take a hard look at it. The Red Sox Radio play-by-play job is considered one of the more revered jobs in Major League Baseball, in one of the best sports towns in the world.

On the first crisp evening of October in 2015, right-handed pitcher, Jake Arietta and the Chicago Cubs had just shut down the Pirates in the National League Wild Card game at PNC Park on the North Shore of Pittsburgh. For the second year in a row, the Pirates playoff run ended quickly with a thud. In 2014, it was shortstop Brandon Crawford’s fourth inning grand slam to right field and the lights out pitching of Madison Bumgarner that helped the San Francisco Giants put an early lid on the Bucs post-season dreams.

Little did I know at the time that, after the Cubs moved on to the ’15 National League Division Series and I took my suitcase back to my house for the off-season, the Arietta gem against Pittsburgh would be my last game in the booth as a Pirates broadcaster. Three days later, while sitting at my kitchen table in the North Hills area of Gibsonia, Pennsylvania, the phone rang.

Leaving Western Pennsylvania for Boston was not as easy for this New England kid as some might have thought. It was not automatic. After seven seasons as television and radio play-by-play announcer I was entrenched in the Pittsburgh community, loved the history of the franchise and the people with whom I worked.

Pirates’ fans are very passionate and knowledgeable and some of the nicest people I have ever met are in the Steel City. I will be honest. I do miss the ‘Burgh. I still miss the place. It took from early October until Christmas Eve 2015 before I could make up my mind to either stay in Pittsburgh with the Pirates, or tread some familiar, but potentially treacherous waters and go home to Boston.

I found myself in the unusual, but enviable position of being able to choose which team to broadcast games for. That stuff just never happens in my industry. If I could be in two places at one time, the decision would have been easier.

Family first…

As a kid, growing up at 121 Concord Street in the shadow of Greeley Park in the North End, I spent countless hours watching my older brother, B.J.’s baseball and football games at Holman Stadium and then played my own games there. I was a proud Purple Panther for football, baseball and indoor track, played three seasons of American Legion ball for Coffey Post 3.

I was part of the 1984 New Hampshire State Champion team that came within two runs of going to the American Legion World Series. I then went on to play four years of baseball at Emerson College in Boston, thus beginning my affection for The Hub.

B.J. still gets to spend considerable time at Holman as manager of the Nashua Silver Knights following a 30 year stint as head baseball coach at Nashua (South) High.

Baseball has always been in our blood. My oldest son, Matt, who broadcast the Silver Knights games on WSMN Radio during the summer of 2016, spent last season working for the Chicago White Sox Double A team in Birmingham, Alabama and this year is the full time play-by-play announcer for the Pirates’ Single A Team in Bradenton, Florida. My Dad, Bill, along with his longtime friend, Larry Hodge, have been fixtures at Holman Stadium for decades having watched just about any baseball game that has been played there. Cancer got in my dad’s way for a while, but he kicked it’s butt and he and my mother, Sheila, who continues to diligently punch back at her own health challenges are currently counting down the days until the Silver Knights open defense of their back to back FCBL titles in June. In the meantime, they watch and listen to the Red Sox. My sister Nancy Guidoboni, who played basketball and softball at Nashua High and is a teacher right next to Holman Stadium at Amherst Street Elementary, has been the backbone of our family’s support system. She and her husband, Rich are often seen at the Stadium watching baseball along with my cousin, Jon Neverett Smith, who is a Silver Knights season ticket holder.

My wife, Jess, and our half human chocolate Labrador retriever, Reggie, lived literally one block from Fenway Park on the corner of Boylston and Jersey Streets during the 2016 and most of the 2017 Red Sox seasons. Due to the fact I was not calling games on TV anymore, I was able to walk home every night after home games in the midst of hundreds and hundreds of Red Sox fans in total anonymity, which was different than what I experienced in Pittsburgh. In late August, we left the Fenway neighborhood and moved back home to Nashua. After living in Boston, Providence, Las Vegas, Denver, Pittsburgh and Boston again, it seems unreal sometimes to be home and be able to work at Fenway along with all the other Major League parks as often as I do.

… and now the pitch

When the chance came up to write a column for The Telegraph and offer my perspective, I was thrilled. It is the newspaper I grew up with. The idea of sharing my thoughts and observations on the Red Sox and Major League Baseball through my hometown newspaper is very appealing to me. As a native of Nashua, who again is a resident of the Gate City, I hope you, as a reader, will appreciate the unique point of view from someone who is with the Red Sox from spring training to the end of the postseason. I travel with them on the busses, the planes and stay at the same hotels all over the American League and then some. I am in the Red Sox clubhouse, the manager’s office, the dugout and on the field, home or away. I am also one of you – a Nashuan. I hope you enjoy my weekly column that will begin appearing in this space on Sundays when I share with you, My View From The Red Sox Booth.

Tim Neverett is in his third season as Red Sox Radio Play-By-Play Announcer for the WEEI Red Sox Radio Network throughout New England. Tim can be followed on Twitter @timneverett.