Can you feel the love, after the most-losing team in baseball got swept at Fenway this weekend by the Twins, when a Red Sox caller to Boston sports radio WEEI was immediately cut-off by EEI host KJ Carson?
Carson hung-up on a caller from New Hampshire who tried to argue that the Red Sox new radio announcer Will Flemming ain’t no Joe Castiglione, who retired after last season following decades helming the booth for WEEI.
The caller introduced his critique of Flemming by saying that he wanted to weigh-in on a Sox issue unrelated to the team’s abysmal record.
Carson was as slow to pick up on what was coming next as was Sox catcher Connor Wong’s lazy gallop to home base in Sunday’s ninth-inning loss.
The caller was then only able to bark out “how Will Flemming sucks as an announcer compared to Joe Castiglione.”
Carson immediately axed the caller, never even explaining why he intentionally cut him off.
The reason was obvious: feel the love or go away.
Flemming, 47, is a WEEI hire, hence the reason why WEEI host Carson sent the caller packing, full-stop.
Before this season, Flemming was the play-by-play voice of the Sox Triple-A minor-league affiliate in Pawtucket.
He was then elevated to the majors, signing a broadcast contract this season to announce WEEI’s Sox games as Castiglione’s successor.
Wong, who Sox manager Chad Tracy had inserted as a pinch runner and who was the potential tying run in the bottom half of the last inning, was cut down at the plate by Minnesota shortstop Ryan Kreidler’s relay on Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s double for the second out in ninth.
The Sox lost 6-5 and are now still flailing at 22-30.
“Wong should be suspended for dereliction of duty” for slow-walking the bases, WEEI’s previous caller, to the caller who Carson shut-off, screamed.
As he often has in his short time with the Sox, Flemming incorrectly prejudged the actual outcome, yelling that Wong was on his way to scoring and tying the game.
Not one word from Carson on Flemming’s having made the wrong Wong call.
While Carson also ultimately commented on Wong’s lazy running, Tracy at a post-game press conference did not even hint at Wong’s sluggishness, nor was the manager even questioned about it by Boston’s sycophant sports reporters.
Tracy is the interim Sox manager, after being called-up in April, from Worcester, where he was the Sox’s minor league manager.
He succeeded Alex Cora, who was fired.
Milk toast Will.
Blaming the broadcaster for the team sucking helps nobody.