R.I.P.: Tony Mercurio, Longtime VA Sports Talker

Mercurio (1949-2024)

Tony Mercurio never lacked confidence or minded courting controversy, and he ruled local sports radio with “The Tony Mercurio Show” five days a week for nearly three decades.

“What I say is my honest opinion,” Mercurio once told The Pilot. “I’m sports entertainment, like wrestling. You can’t be vanilla and agree with every caller and kiss their rear ends. I’m never going to do it.”

Mercurio, the “Blastman,” who raved and ranted — mostly ranted — on WGH-AM and then WVSP ESPN Radio 94.1 FM and championed Old Dominion University women’s basketball as the team’s longtime announcer, died over the weekend. He was 75, according to The Virginian-Pilot.

A friend posted on Mercurio’s Facebook page that he died Saturday afternoon. Mercurio had battled multiple illnesses and ailments, including diabetes.

Mercurio was the lead broadcaster for baseball’s Tides during multiple stints over a 35-year period and for ODU women’s basketball for 22 years, and he founded the Hampton Roads Sports Hall of Fame.

“For so many people in the region, Tony is the voice they associate with sports,” said Mike Holtzclaw, a former reporter and editor with the Daily Press and the Hampton Roads Sports Hall of Fame’s historian. “He had that great big personality on the air. Every day he wanted to push people’s buttons, whether they liked what he was saying or hated it. He wanted to provoke a response, and he usually did.”