Pending what happens in the coming months with the Red Sox and Patriots, the big winner in Boston sports this year is Glenn Ordway.
Wait, what? Yes, the ratings for the afternoon drive show he hosts on WEEI with former Sox infielder Lou Merloni and former Patriots tight end Christian Fauria are not what they were in the heyday of “The Big Show.” That was when Pedro Martinez was on the hill, a new Big Three was toeing the parquet, Tom Brady had a measly three Super Bowl victories on his resume … and pretty much everyone wanted to hear what Ordway had to say about it all.
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In many ways, those days are over. So when he announced during Tuesday’s show he’s moving on at the end of the summer, “going out on top” was not part of the ensuing discussion on the air or on Twitter, because such talk wouldn’t have been on the level. Ordway’s show is fine and he has great chemistry with his two jock buddies; it’s just that Mike Felger and Tony Massarotti of 98.5 The Sports Hub have owned afternoon drive for years now, and Ordway wasn’t going to change that. Somebody else might, who knows? But the Big O had had his run.
But check this out: Ordway is 70 years old — 70 freakin’ years old — and only now is he stepping away. Oh, he says he’ll still do some radio here and there — he’ll continue hosting “The Real Postgame Show” with former NFL players Steve DeOssie and Fred Smerlas after Patriots games — but the business isn’t kind to talk-show hosts once they’ve committed the unpardonable sin of allowing their own age to go wandering past the 24-to-54 demo. But Ordway kept fighting. He went from having the top-rated show on the afternoon drive to being fired, to being re-hired to do middays, to reclaiming afternoon drive. And is still doing it at age 70. That, right there, is what makes him one of the big winners of 2021.
Ordway didn’t “invent” sports radio. What he did do was borrow bits and pieces of various formats that had existed before him, and then create “The Big Show.” He can walk away knowing that a lot of the programs now on the Boston airways — the good ones, the bad ones — are to some degree descendants of what he started. This would include the “Felger & Mazz” show. The former Herald sportswriters were introduced to sports talk radio as co-hosts on Ordway’s show. As was I. As were Sean McAdam, Michael Holley, Steve Burton, Cedric Maxwell and so many others.
“I’ve heard from a lot of people today who’ve said thanks for helping me out, thanks for getting me started in the business, whatever, and they were all people who were on the show,” Ordway told me after Tuesday’s show. “I appreciate it, but that was my job. It was my job to develop talent and bring other people on the air.
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“So I was actually helping myself. The fact that some of them went on to bigger and better things, good for them. And I feel good about that. But we were simply trying to do a good radio show.”
Ordway’s announcement had been in the works for months. As far back as February, he and his wife, Sarah, traveled to Arizona and began scouting real estate. They’ve since closed on a house in North Scottsdale that has all the perks snowbirds love — gated community, two golf courses, their own pool — and this means they won’t be far from their son Sammy, who’s about to begin his first year at Arizona State.
They also have a daughter, Mia, who was born in 2008 and had serious health issues that required Ordway to take a month-long leave of absence from the show. He’s never forgotten the outpouring of support his family received from the Boston sports community. Mia, who made a full recovery, is about to enter her last year of middle school. It was another factor in Ordway making the move now: He and his wife want Mia to get acclimated to a new environment before entering high school a year from now.
Ordway’s older daughter Holly is getting married in San Diego next month and then will be living and working in Minnesota.
He also has grown children living in the Boston area.
“I’m not leaving Boston,” said Ordway, who will keep a home in the area. “This is my hometown. We’ll be going back and forth. And I’m not leaving the show because I’m sick of doing it, or bored with it, or anything along those lines. But I was thinking, do I needto keep doing this? I don’t know how long I’m going to be here on this planet. Nobody does. So why not get an opportunity to enjoy my life more, to enjoy my family more?
“And we want to travel. I’ve promised Sarah I’m going to take her to Paris. Believe it or not, I’ve never been to Paris. I’ve never been to Hawaii. And get this — I’m half Greek and yet I’ve never been to Greece. We’re going to change that.”
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Ordway did talk radio early in his career and then graduated to doing Celtics play-by-play on the radio, first as a sidekick to the iconic Johnny Most and then as Most’s successor. He later quit, he said, because the Celtics wanted him to be less critical. (Former Celtics GM Jan Volk has told me Ordway turned down a new contract.) He was then planning to work for another NBA team; instead, he wound up as program director at WEEI. After a nationwide search — insert eye roll here — he named himself as the new afternoon drive host, moving Eddie Andelman to middays.
Had Ordway continued to do basketball play-by-play, he might still be calling games. He might even have returned to the Celtics. The talented Sean McDonough, the former Red Sox voice on NESN, is now back doing some Sox games on WEEI as he preps for his much bigger upcoming gig as the lead NHL play-by-play voice for ESPN.
“If I did play-by-play for an entire career I might still be doing it and maybe could have done five years beyond 70. Who knows?” Ordway said. “I loved doing play-by-play. I also did the Bruins for a couple of years with Bob Wilson. People forget about that.
“But I also got to do talk radio during a 20-year period that might have been the greatest era that any city has ever enjoyed in the history of sports.”
As we’ve seen, you can be president of the United States at age 70 and beyond. You can star in a movie. Al Pacino is 81. You can run the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Anthony Fauci is 80.
In sports radio, you get heaved overboard, often quite unceremoniously, long before you hit 70.
And then there’s Glenn Ordway. Love him or hate him — and, come on, nobody is neutral when it comes to sports talk show hosts — it’s hard not to be impressed that there’s a 70-year-old guy on the radio talking about the new coach of the Celtics, the problems Garrett Richards is having on the mound, and, of course, who’s going to be the Pats’ No. 1 quarterback this season.
(Photo of Glenn Ordway with Christian Fauria, right: Courtesy of WEEI)
Steve Buckley is a columnist for The Athletic. He was previously a sports columnist for the Boston Herald for nearly 24 years after spending time a columnist for the National Sports Daily and a contributor on ESPN2. Follow Steve on Twitter @BuckinBoston
