R.I.P. Guy Mainella, Pioneering Boston Sports Talker

Guy Mainella ('39-'24)

Guy Mainella, a sports radio pioneer who hosted the popular nightly show “Calling All Sports” on WBZ-AM for most of the 1970s, died Monday evening. He was 85 years old. according to The Boston Globe.

Mainella had suffered from Parkinson’s disease for the last 20 years, according to his son, Scott. He lived in Scarborough, Maine, for the past 15 years with his wife, Carole, who was his primary caregiver.

Mainella, a Wisconsin native who went to high school in Alaska and was an accomplished baseball pitcher, joined WBZ-AM on the news side in the mid-’60s. On July 15, 1969, his son’s 8th birthday, he debuted “Calling All Sports” as its sole host.

It was not the first sports radio program in the country — Bill Mazer at WNBC in New York is credited with starting the genre in 1964 — but it was a new format in Boston. Mainella’s timing couldn’t have been better, with Bobby Orr and the Bruins about to capture the region’s hearts.

“Calling All Sports” ran for 90 minutes on Tuesday through Fridays beginning at 6:30, and at 7 p.m. on Saturdays. Mainella — who also had stints on Celtics radio and television broadcasts — developed an easy rapport with guests and callers alike.

He was drawn to interesting characters, his son said. Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee occasionally filled in while Mainella was on vacation.

“I remember one classic interview where Howard Cosell and [ABC Sports president] Roone Arledge were sitting out by a swimming pool in Palm Springs,” said Scott Mainella. “My dad asked him some question or something that got him upset and he walked away from the interview for a few minutes and then came back to it. I think my dad got a kick out of that, Cosell being Cosell.”

Mainella departed WBZ in 1978, two years after he moved away from sports to general talk radio at the station. He was replaced on “Calling All Sports” by Bob Lobel and Upton Bell.