Veteran broadcasters for Red Sox, Pats staying with teams

The sound of Boston’s professional sports scene won’t be changing drastically in the near future.

Two recent developments concerning longtime voices of the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots have seen to that.

Former ABC and CBS announcer Sean McDonough opted to bypass an offer from the New York Mets and stay on as a television play-by-play voice of the Boston Red Sox despite the Mets offering him an 80-game package vs. 30 for the Sox. Also ongoing reports by the Boston media suggest both the Patriots and Boston radio station WBCN will be more than happy to keep longtime Pats play-by-play voice Gil Santos on the air at least for the forseeable future.

Broadcaster continuity and familiarity has historically been the norm for New England TV viewers and radio listeners who try to follow each play, quarter, inning, half, and period of action when the Boston Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins, plus the New England Patriots are in action.

McDonough will return to call a cooperative 30-game Red Sox TV package for Boston stations WSBK (Ch. 38) and WBZ (Ch. 4) for a 16th season.

The newly revamped schedule comes after the Red Sox signed a contract with WSBK-WBZ for a package involving mostly Friday night broadcasts. That followed three seasons of games on Boston flagship station WFXT (Ch. 25).

McDonough will again team up with former Red Sox second baseman Jerry Remy, who has been handling Sox color commentary on TV broadcasts for 15 seasons. Remy will also handle analysis on New England Sports Network’s TV games package, which will include at least 122 and as many as 125 games. His NESN broadcast partner will be Don Orsillo, who will call action for a fourth season.

If you think the long association between McDonough/Remy and the Sox is impressive, think about Santos’ tenure with the Pats.

Santos has been the voice of the Patriots since 1966, but his reign was interrupted three times (John Carlson, Curt Gowdy, Dale Arnold) in that span. He appears well positioned to extend his stay in the broadcast booth above the 50-yard line as WBCN (104.1 FM), which simulcasts game broadcasts to seven local stations such as Bangor’s WFZX (101.7 FM), is expected to have its current deal with the Patriots extended by as many as 10 years in the near future. WBCN has been the Patriots official radio flagship station for eight seasons.

Longevity is the key word with the Celtics as well. NBA Hall of Famer Tom Heinsohn has been the boisterous voice for the Kelly Green-and-White as color analyst for 21 seasons. In fact, he and play-by-play broadcast partner Mike Gorman are currently the country’s longest-running TV sports broadcast team with more than 1,000 telecasts together.

As for the Bruins, play-by-play man Dale Arnold has called the action for the black-and-gold since 1995 for New England Sports Network. Andy Brickley, his broadcast partner, has only been part of the team since the 2000-01 season.

NESN’s Christmas eve outdoors

New England Sports Network will air a six-hour Charlie Moore Outdoors marathon block starting at 4 p.m. Christmas eve. The network outdoorsman’s shows will feature former episodes on sharks, wrestling in Vermont, and four fishing trips with Boston sports stars such as John Havlicek, Adam Vinatieri, and Johnny Bucyk.

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600, or aneff@bangordailynews.net