If you’re a Boston Red Sox fan still shaken by the 2011 collapse and the loss of Terry Francona and Jonathan Papelbon, you should probably sit down, because it’s about to get a lot worse. By way of Sean McAdam at Red Sox Talk:
Play-by-play announcer Don Orsillo has signed a contract extension to remain with NESN, but the network’s Red Sox telecasts will be without in-game reporter Heidi Watney next year, industry sources indicate.
Watney, whose contract had also expired, is leaving to work for Time Warner Cable in southern California. Time Warner Cable lured the Los Angeles Lakers away from Fox Sports West and KCAL-TV last February with a landmark 20-year deal said be worth in excess of $2.5 billion.
To make matters feel even more like the last five minutes of Childish Gambino’s ‘That Power’, Boston Globe reporter Chad Finn explained via Twitter that Heidi is from California (in case you’d convinced yourself she was a New England native) and had been homesick for most of the four years she spent trying to do her job and not bend over in front of anybody at Fenway Park.
But, as the old saying goes, it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. I’ve put together a montage of photos and videos from Heidi’s time in Boston, and every time your heart sinks thinking about her standing center-court in an empty Staples Center, holding a microphone, interviewing nobody, you can flip back through and remember the good old days. Good luck in Los Angeles, Heidi. I hope a beautiful blonde can find fame there.
