Turns out that WEEI is not “building a bench” and adding depth to its roster of Red Sox broadcasters for the 2024 season, according to Chad Finn at Boston .com.
It’s not necessary, since after some unusual suspense, the entire regular lineup is returning.
Joe Castiglione, who will be honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame this summer as the Ford C. Frick Award winner, will call mostly home games during his 42nd season as a Red Sox radio voice.
Will Flemming, whose status was cause for such suspense, will call approximately 140 games in his sixth season as part of the radio broadcast team.
Lou Merloni will be in the booth for 70 or so games, also filling a similar role on NESN.
Questions about the status of WEEI and parent company Audacy’s plans for the broadcast materialized in early January when a job posting seeking a play-by-play/analyst announcer for Red Sox radio broadcasts began making the rounds.
It read in part: “If you have experience and expertise in describing baseball action on the radio — to go along with an engaging personality — you could be a perfect match to call games alongside Hall of Famer Joe Castiglione in the Sox Booth this year!”
The description sounded an awful lot like Flemming’s job — because it was. Mike Thomas, senior vice president and market manager for Audacy Boston, told me at the time that he was just “building a bench.”
But it turned out that Flemming had applied for television openings with the Tigers and, then, the White Sox. He did so after being offered just a one-year deal to remain on the broadcast despite being an obvious choice to be Castiglione’s successor in the long term.
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