Jerry Remy will be missed by Red Sox fans everywhere

The passing of longtime Red Sox broadcaster Jerry Remy on Saturday night after a long, recurring battle with lung cancer --- he had several bouts of it until the cancer returned in August --- has spawned countless tributes from his colleagues in the booth and the fans, and that's as it should be.
To watch Remy interact with his fellow broadcasters over the last 33 years was like listening to your friends or fellow fans calling the game. Remy and his sidekicks --- Sean McDonough, Don Orsillo, Dave O'Brien and, of course, the inimitable Dennis "The Eck" Eckersley -- loved the game of baseball and made every game something entertaining and fun to watch, regardless of how good or bad the Red Sox were doing on the field.
Remy brought excellent analysis and so much more to his broadcasts. He brought humor, self-deprecation and relaxed conversations with his broadcast partners that were at once educational, illuminating, funny and, at times, downright hilarious.
But more than that, Remy and his partners were and are consummate professionals, something that they proved over an over the last two seasons, when they couldn't travel with the team on the road, and especially in the COVID-19-truncated season of 2020,, when they were forced to bring the game into our homes while watching both home and away games on the TV monitors in the NESN studios.
The three-person booth of recent season featuring Remy, O'Brien and Eck were the best. It was pure gold to hear 1978 teammates Eck and Remy talk about not only that night's or day's game, but also of just baseball in general and how it's changed. They were candid about the game, whether it was about the overuse of shifts, which is killing the game, the need for a pitch clock and how successful the extra-innings rule of the last two seasons --- starting each inning from the 10th on with a runner on second base --- was and how foolish it would be for Commissioner Rob Manfred to abandon that in 2022. Ditto for the seven-inning doubleheaders.
Remy and Eck were key cogs on the 1978 team, which won 99 games before losing the Bucky "Bleepin' " Dent playoff game on Oct. 2 to the Yankees, and they were pure gold in the booth.
Baseball fans across New England not only lost a superb broadcaster with the death of Remy at 68 (he was born the same year as me and a lot of Red Sox fans of a certain age, 1952), but they lost a dear friend.
Rest in peace, Jerry; Red Sox Nation will forever remember and miss you.