When Boston opened its 2016 season in Cleveland on Tuesday afternoon, Red Sox fans heard a different TV broadcast team for the first time in fifteen years.
Last summer, the bosses at NESN decided not to renew Don Orsillo's contract as the team's play-by-play man. NESN bungled that decision, as well as its very public aftermath, about as badly as it was possible to bungle anything. Orsillo's ousting was tremendously unpopular with most Red Sox fans. He had been the TV play-by-play man since 2001 and for many fans, he was the only Red Sox TV announcer they had ever known.