WEEI’s Lou Merloni launches epic rant against members of the Boston Red Sox media
Lou merloni, the hometown kid who played for the Boston Red Sox several times before going on broadcast and radio, has a bone to choose from with a certain faction of the Boston media.
Merloni, who now co-hosts “”Merloni & FauriaOn WEEI, opened Thursday’s show with what they accurately described on social media as a “rant.”
The rant was so long that it had to be split into several parts because the show’s Twitter account is unverified and therefore subject to Twitter’s video limit of around two minutes and twenty seconds. Here is the first part of the four:
In his rant, Merloni sets aside former IEE host Gerry Callahan, one of many who have spoken out about low attendance at Fenway Park this season. Except, as Merloni notes, Fenway had the lowest capacity of any stadium in MLB for the first two months of the season due to COVID restrictions. And now that the stadium is open to capacity, games have exceeded 20,000 spectators on a regular basis, while other MLB teams with larger stadiums are struggling to reach 10,000 on average. For the last home series of the season against the Yankees this weekend, tickets are low and they’re quite expensive.
Rival station 98.5 The sports centerThe media coverage of the Red Sox is overwhelmingly negative, and Merloni has a compelling theory as to why. The station is marketed as “Your Flagship Station” to the New England Patriots, Boston Bruins, Boston Celtics and the New England Revolution. Merloni said the reason for their vitriol towards the Red Sox and their fans is that they do not provide coverage of the game themselves; basically if they can’t get the plays / clicks / views nobody should:
“The tone of this show is baseball sucks, the sport is dead, you shouldn’t care, you shouldn’t go, and you’re too dumb to realize this is the only team they don’t. not broadcast. This is the memo they sent to their entire station; they don’t want you to watch, they don’t want you to care, they don’t want you to listen.
Merloni then played a clip of the Friday night host from 98.5 Adam jones saying he hopes Red Sox fans boycott the final homestand of the season. The Red Sox have won seven in a row and the final homestand is a must-see streak against the Yankees as the two teams vie for a spot for the Wild Card. Telling fans not to go, watch or listen to the games, which are broadcast on NESN and WEEI, makes absolutely no sense.
“We tell you what to like and what not to like. You have a team that’s about to go into the playoffs right now, and you are told and ashamed if you cheer them on… How you don’t like this team, I don’t understand. They gave you everything, it’s been entertaining from day one.
The 2021 Red Sox more than exceeded expectations
Merloni is absolutely right that no matter how good the Red Sox are, there are always members of the media who will find something to complain about. For some, it’s a habit formed during the 86-year-old curse, unbreakable despite the following four championships. For others, as Merloni claims, it is because they have a more selfish business angle in mind. All in all, it feels like a lot of Boston’s media are incapable of simply enjoying the good as it comes.
The 2021 Red Sox have been largely good and almost always fun, two things many didn’t expect them to be after the dismal 2020 season, the Mookie Betts trade, the Alex Cora scandal, Chris’s Tommy John Dirty and the overhanging cloud of the global pandemic which persists after more than a year and a half. And overall, the past two decades have been a golden age for the Red Sox: David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez, Dustin Pedroia, Jon Lester, now Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers and Chris Sale. The future of the farming system is bright and the team is on the cusp of earning a Wild Card slot.
The season will be over in a few days, Fenway’s games end on Sunday and who knows how long a playoff series will last before a cold and dreary winter. Enjoy the Red Sox while they’re here.
