If These Walls Could Talk

by Jerry Remy

  I don’t know what else to say about her except she’s the best person I know and that she provides the strength for all of us. She’s a wonderful mother, and a wonderful grandmother. You can ask anyone in our family and they will tell you the exact same thing. I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s been with me through all the highs and the lows. She’s been through the cancer, through the depression, through our son’s ordeal, which absolutely crushed her. She’s still here and she always manages to have a bright outlook on things. Phoebe has been through some things that could have knocked her out of the game, but she’s a very strong woman. She’s really been the backbone of our family.

  Some of the things you think about when you’re doing a book about your life includes thinking back on your childhood. My mother worked at my uncle’s dance studio, so it was impossible for me to avoid dancing. I was a tap dancer until I was 14 years old and I would participate in the annual dance recital. I really believe that dancing is the reason I had quick feet. Think about tap dancing and the discipline needed to become a tap dancer and tell me that doesn’t affect your agility in a positive way. It’s what gave me my quickness, my speed. Maybe at the time I did it reluctantly, but, boy, am I glad that I tapped! And every now and then, even though I’ve had 11 procedures on my left knee, I feel the urge to start tap dancing in the booth.

  When I came to Boston from the Angels, one of the most difficult adjustments was the fact that my parents were able to come to Fenway and see me play. Believe me, there are good things about your parents watching you play major league baseball, but it was also stressful. They would come up on most of the weekends. It was awful standing out on the field and being booed, or worse, while your parents were sitting in the stands. It’s a horrible feeling.

  So, it’s kind of weird, but since I’ve been a broadcaster, over the years, I’ve become a totally different person. I don’t bring the game home with me the way I did as a player. I think I’ve been a much better husband, an all-around better person, because, now, I’m much more laid-back.

  I guess my biggest regret is I could never really enjoy my time as a player because I never felt comfortable. Even when I was doing well, I was always expecting the next shoe to drop and blow everything up. That’s just the way I was; that was my mentality. However, I believe that type of attitude made me, in many ways, persevere in life.

  I think I’m more popular now than I was as a player. When you’re on television, and I’ve been on it now going into my 32nd year, you establish yourself, people feel as if you’re part of their family. They feel like they know you personally. It’s incredible having people say that they remember a particular call or play, or that they missed me on TV when I couldn’t work. The feedback you get from the fans is remarkable.

  I’m not saying I wasn’t popular as a player. I was a local kid who did well with the Red Sox. Not a Hall of Fame player, but good enough to be an All-Star, and to be inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame. I was never really heckled or picked on by the Red Sox fans. I think I was well liked. But my popularity as a broadcaster is 10 times the amount it was as a player.

  It’s just a shame that I had so many injuries. I played in the days before we had the technology that they have today. The first time I hurt my knee was at Yankee Stadium in 1979. I made a terrible base running play. I led the game off with a triple. Catfish Hunter was pitching on one of those hot New York days. Rick Burleson hit a little popup down the first base line. I was under the impression that Yankees first baseman Chris Chambliss was going to catch the ball going away from home plate. There were no outs in the inning. Instead, Willie Randolph made the play and threw me out at home plate by about 10 feet. As I went in to slide, my spike got caught. My body went one way, but my knee went in another direction. It was just a horrible play on my part.

  I honestly believe, to this day, that I played the remainder of the year with torn cartilage in my left knee that was suffering more damage as I continued to play. My knee problem became a constant issue. Every year I’d have to go in and get a “clean up.” Eventually that’s what ended my career, possibly, a few years before it should have ended. I just couldn’t do it anymore.

  When I reported to spring training in 1986, I knew I was done. For the last couple of years, I noticed a difference in my speed. I was getting thrown out by half a step on balls that I use to beat out in the infield. There were plays at second base, where I was able to dive and make a play, now I’d dive but I couldn’t quite get there. As time went on, I became more aware of these changes. It was frustrating because speed was really my game. Speed gave me the range that I had; it gave me the ability to steal bases. With every knee injury, I could just sense my career slipping away.

  In May of 1980, one of my worst injuries occurred in a game at Cleveland Stadium, when I had to play right field in the eighth inning. Fred Lynn was hurt that day. Don Zimmer got into a situation where he was pinch-hitting for Dwight Evans and needed a right fielder. Zim looked down the bench and asked if any of us could play right field. No one said anything. So, I volunteered. In the bottom of the eighth inning, I moved from second base to right field and Jack Brohammer, who had pinch-hit for Dwight, went to second base.

  Of course, the first pitch Bob Stanley threw Indians catcher Ron Hassey was hit up in the air to right field. I looked like an absolute idiot trying to make a play on a routine fly ball. I went back, I came in. Again, I went back, I came in. Eventually my knee gave way; the ball landed behind me and the runner ended up at third base. It was probably the most embarrassing moment in my baseball career.

  People ask me how long I’m going to broadcast. Quite frankly, except during the time after my son’s incident, retirement has never entered my mind. I have no desire to retire. Although I’m not a kid anymore, I’m 66 years old, I still get a rush when the umpire says, “Play ball!”

  I can’t say I have an age in mind at which point I would consider retirement. My performance and my health will determine when it’s time to leave.

  One thing I’ll never forget was the Red Sox and NESN honoring me on August 20, 2017, for my 30th year in broadcasting. When they host a celebration, they do it up right! They asked me who I wanted to have attend the ceremony, if they needed to fly anyone in for the event. I said I wanted to do something a little different. I really wanted my family and my doctors from Mass General Hospital with me on the field.

  I brought out all the doctors who have worked with me, the ones who have kept me alive for the last 10 years. It was kind of funny for me to see them in a different atmosphere as opposed to at the hospital in their white coats. On this day, they were just fans having a great time. It was an honor for me to have them on the field with me, because without these people, I wouldn’t be here today.

  I didn’t want to make it a huge production. I wanted it to be just my family, my grandchildren, and my doctors. My producer, Mike Narracci, was also on the field. We’ve worked together for such a long time and I wanted him there. Then there were members of the Red Sox organization and NESN, for example, Sam Kennedy, a terrific guy and friend; chairman Tom Werner; Linda Pizzutti Henry; Sean McGrail; and others.

  They’ve all been great to me.

  Dr. Walter O’Donnell is my pulmonologist. Dr. Alice Shaw is my oncologist. Dr. Henning Willers is my radiologist/oncologist. Dr. Cameron Wright is my surgeon. Dr. Joanne Shepherd does my biopsies and specializes in nuclear medicine. Dr. Jerrold Rosembaum is my psychiatrist. Dr. Larry Ronan could not be there that day, but I owe him my life. As my primary care physician, he’s the one who first detected an abnormality in my chest X-ray and I am eternally grateful to him.

  A funny story: Dr. Wright is a thoracic surgeon. He’s a real straightforward, no-nonsense type of guy. But when all the doctors were lined up in the dugout prior to going out onto the field that day, John Farrell came walking by and Dr. Wright yelled out, “Let’s go, Sox!” Of course, Farrell didn’t
respond because there were thousands of people in the stands. I looked at Dr. Wright and he’s shaking his head, as if wondering, why did I say that?

  It’s almost like everyone goes to the ballpark and becomes a kid!

  It was a real honor to walk on the field at Fenway Park in 2017 to celebrate my 30 years in the Red Sox booth. (Getty Images)

  I also want to mention my sister, Judy. She’s one of my biggest fans. A great Red Sox fan. She’s five years my junior, and even when she moved to Florida to be close to our parents, she never stopped supporting me. She has stuck with me throughout all my ordeals. She lost her husband way too young, to lung cancer, but she’s strong and resilient. Judy has been an amazing source of love and support since we were kids.

  My other two children, Jordan and Jenna, have also endured the immense pain of what happened with Jared. They both loved and miss Jen. The situation has been so difficult for them. Jordan, recently married, has moved out of state. Jenna and her husband have stayed in the area. As a parent, it’s good to see them find some happiness and be able to move on with their lives.

  The last decade or so of my life has been a challenge, but the love and support that I’ve received from my family and friends has been something I will never, ever forget.

  Thanks to all of the fans who have been there for me through thick and thin. You’ll never know how much you’ve helped me get through some of the darkest times of my life. I just want to be the most insightful and entertaining analyst I can be for you on Red Sox broadcasts.

  You’ve welcomed me into your living rooms, family rooms, TV rooms, man caves, wherever you watch Red Sox games, for more than 30 years. I hope that continues for many years to come.

  Afterword by Don Orsillo

  I had first met Jerry Remy when I was an intern for Joe Castiglione and Ken Coleman back in 1989, and then Joe and Bob Starr in 1990. I was in the booth next door and Jerry had this obsession with the lineup, and getting it at, like 2:30 in the afternoon for a 7:00 pm game. He would come to me and say, “You got a lineup yet?” So, that’s how I first got to know him.

  I spent the next 10 seasons in the minor leagues, broadcasting games on radio, and my last year was with the Pawtucket Red Sox. I worked at three different levels of the minor leagues, from Single-A to Triple-A.

  I was kind of at a crossroads in my career, really, as to what I was going to do. I was turning 30 and didn’t really know if I was taking the right route to the big leagues. During the 2000 season, I went with the PawSox staff to a day/night doubleheader against Cleveland at Fenway. I knew at this time Bob Kurtz would not be returning to NESN. I ended up in the booth sitting on the stairs behind Jerry in between games. Jerry turned to me and said, “Are you interested in coming up here?” I said, “Yes!” I told him I’d been in the minors for 10 years and my goal was to get up to the majors. Jerry Remy, along with Dan Duquette, who was the general manager at the time, were very instrumental in getting me to the major leagues, and to Boston.

  The next step was trying to figure out what the heck I was doing. I had done years in the minor leagues but I was still very green when it came to the major leagues. There’s such a big difference between broadcasting in the minor leagues and broadcasting in the majors. And you really need a veteran, much like a player who needs a veteran when they arrive to kind of take him under his wing, and Jerry really did that for me.

  I’m talking about everything, from the baseball side of things to where to sit on the charter, where to sit on the bus, how to get into the stadiums, how to get into the booths. And the TV stuff. I had no idea what I was doing television-wise, and really leaned on him a great deal for, not only his expert analysis, but really, just how to do TV and get used to having five people talking to you in your ear while you’re broadcasting. Jerry was huge in really helping me get through that process.

  We have been through so much together over the years, especially when he came back after the first bout of cancer and the depression. I think it was uncomfortable for him, and there were a lot of times when I think he questioned whether he could do it. That’s when we really became friends, and that was like, our ninth year of working together, and then he became part of my inner circle, and has been ever since, even though I’ve been gone for years.

  It was that year when we really started to get into our antics. We had been doing funny things and having funny conversations, like two guys in a bar, on the team plane. We’d crack each other up. So we shifted that unscripted stuff into the booth. It wasn’t forced or premeditated. It just kind of happened. We would just react to things as they occurred. It happened organically like two friends having a conversation.

  There were a few that were embarrassing, like the joke was on me. Very early in my career, I’d say like 2002—it was around the lunar eclipse—and it was supposed to be that night, and we were talking about it on the air, and I started talking about it, and referencing what I thought took place during a lunar eclipse. The more I talked, the more obvious it became that I really didn’t know anything about it; in my scenario, the sun kind of crosses in front of the moon, and we’d all be fried and dead. That one had a lot of traction and Jerry just played along. That was really the first one with Jerry, but there were just so many over the years. My personal favorite, because it just was so surprising, was Jerry’s tooth falling out in between us on the table in the middle of a play. I ended up putting it back in his mouth, and I took out a hammer and some tools from a tool box we had in the booth. I ended up getting an honorary doctorate from the New England Dentistry Association, and I was invited to their yearly conference. So, thanks to Jerry, I am now a dentist.

  People talk about the boob grab, which was another incident that just came out of nowhere. There was this guy and girl, actually two couples who were sitting in the bleachers. Mike Narracci, our director, kept the camera on them, and Jerry says, “Isn’t this nice? You know, a lovely summer evening to be out on a romantic night.” One problem: while we were still on camera with these couples, a guy reaches over and grabs her left boob. We just couldn’t speak. Our laughter was to the point where we couldn’t get words out of our mouths. I think Nick Markakis was up and I tried to do the Markakis at-bat. I couldn’t. Part of the laughter was what people couldn’t hear back home. Narracci said in my earpiece, “I’m all done, I stayed on them too long, I’m finished.” I went on the talkback to him, and I said, “Well, look at it this way, at least you can direct porn if they fire you.” There was a lot of giggling between Jerry and I about things that were coming from the truck that fans at home couldn’t tell. There were so many, it was unbelievable. It was fun for us.

  In my last five years, we had three last-place finishes. There was a championship mixed in there in ’13, but we had some bad baseball for a lot of those years. There were times when the games weren’t competitive, so we got off on tangents on things that had nothing to do with the game. I think there were some people who thought it should be all balls and strikes, and that we shouldn’t have fun and they just wanted to listen to the game, and see the game, and they didn’t need all of that other stuff. We had decided that we were going to do it the way we were doing it until somebody told us otherwise.

  We did have serious baseball conversations as well. To me, one of Jerry’s strengths was that he thought like a manager, in that he first-guesses a lot and is right a lot. Jerry gets out there ahead of the play and throws his knowledge out there early. Hit-and-runs, possible scenarios, squeezes. He’s thinking along like a manager would be. Even the next inning, as to who’s coming up, what’s the scenario. So, that makes him special, it really does, and he’s very, very good at it.

  I think Jerry brought out the best in me. Jerry was my first major league partner and I’m so glad I got to learn from him. He was so good at breaking down the inside stuff of the game both on and off the field. He taught me so much about TV and being comfortable with my game.

 
We called the 2004 season almost in its entirety. The first World Series in 86 years. That was big for both of us. We could see it building and building and we knew what we were going through was special. And it was a loose team with a lot of characters and that made all of it so much fun and pleasurable as broadcasters.

  Then there were those tough times with Jerry. There was a lot there that we were dealing with, and to be honest, you’re with your partners in the big leagues many more hours than you are with your wife or family. You get there every day at 2:30 pm and you leave at 10:30, and you’re together all that time on the plane, and in the hotels, on off days, and you really spend every day with that person, so it’s like a marriage in some ways.

  There were games when he was going through depression that Jerry was really quiet. I knew he was struggling. And there were times where I basically would just pick it up and go, and I don’t want to say cover for him, because he always made it, but there were some innings, middle innings of games, where sometimes you could just tell he was going into kind of a shell or a haze, whatever it was. It kind of overtook him. That happened from time to time, especially leading up to when he left the first time, ’09.

  Then there was the time when the depression and anxiety affected him out of the booth. We were in Cleveland and when I came into the lobby and he was sitting down there, and he said, “I don’t wanna go.”

  And I said, “Okay, well, what are you afraid of?”

  And he pointed toward the doors at the Marriott and he said, “All that out there.”

  I said, “All right, we’ll just sit here.” I sat with him for about 25 minutes, and then I said, “Well, why don’t we go over to the park and if we get there and you’re just not feeling any better, then we can come right back.”