Famalee Forever: A Visit with Tim Neverett

Beloved Pittsburgh Pirates Announcer Tim Neverett Enjoying New Gig with the Boston Red Sox

Pittsburgh Pirates fans – and all baseball fans – are accustomed to change. They might not like it very much, but rare is the team that doesn’t experience a personnel turnover between the seasons. Walker, Morton, Alvarez, Niese, Jaso, Freese…the 2016 Pirates look a lot different than the 2015 ones did. Clubhouse changes are expected. But changes in the broadcast booth? Notsomuch.

That’s exactly what happened in Pittsburgh between their 2015 and 2016 seasons, when play-by-play announcer Tim Neverett left the Pirates broadcast booth to accept a role as a radio announcer for the Boston Red Sox on the New England Sports Network.

“It was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make and it took me a long, long time to make it,” Neverett, who originally hails from New England, said. He initially got the call from the Red Sox in October and it wasn’t until Christmas Eve morning that he made his decision to leave.

“When I said ‘the Red Sox called and they’re interested in talking to me,’ because I still had a number of years left on my contract with the Pirates, the [Pirates’] response was, ‘Well, you’re from there, you owe it to yourself to hear what they have to say.’ So they were very kind in that regard, and very understanding,” he recounted while standing outside of Fenway Park watching the foot traffic for a Friday evening game pass by.

In the end, his decision to leave came down to family and the modern issue of caring for aging parents.

“They’re both 80 and it was kind of important for me to be around them at this stage in their lives,” Neverett said of his mom and dad. “My mom’s been in the hospital since March over in Cambridge, so I get to see her quite a bit and if I was down in Pittsburgh, it would be real hard. My dad’s not been well either, so I get to see him. Again, if I was down in Pittsburgh, I wouldn’t get to spend this time with them.”

However tough leaving Pittsburgh was, for the man who grew up following the Red Sox, the opportunity to broadcast their games is a bit of a dream come true, although not without its hurdles.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”#000000″ class=”” size=””]In the end, his decision to leave came down to family and the modern issue of caring for aging parents.[/perfectpullquote]

“Getting back into the American League is still taking some getting used to,” he said.

Game length, a common complaint amongst National League devotees, is one difference, he said. Another key difference? The DH.

“The designated hitter completely changes the game. It changes the strategy, how you pitch to the bottom of the order, changes the strategy on how long you can leave your pitcher in, it just changes it – a lot,” he said, admitting he still wasn’t sold on the concept. “Some of these teams in the American League carry a three-man bench. They just don’t need that many people on the bench. So they’d rather carry an extra pitcher, maybe two extra pitchers and go with a three-man bench. Here they go with a four-man bench most of the time and try to squeak through the interleague game with a four-man bench. And it doesn’t always work. So that’s been different.”

Transitioning into such a public role with the Red Sox has been easier for Neverett, thanks to helpful co-workers who are almost as much a Boston institution as the team. “Joe Castiglione is my regular partner. He’s been here 34 years, he’s in the Red Sox Hall of Fame and he’s a walking, talking encyclopedia for this franchise. On top of that he’s a really great guy, so he’s helped me a lot in my transition,” he said. “People around, the staff, the players, the manager, they’ve all been really, really good. We’re more than halfway through the season and it’s starting to feel like I’ve been here a while. Longer than I have.”

One thing that Neverett enjoys in Boston, for the time being anyway, is the anonymity he never had in his seven seasons as a play-by-play broadcaster for the Pirates. “It’s different not having the television element anymore. In Pittsburgh you would go places and people would recognize you because you were on television. Here I can walk in the middle of the most die-hard group of Red Sox fans and they would have no clue who I was,” he said. “That’s nice, because I live nearby, so I walk back and forth after the games. I’ll walk through hundreds of people every night and not a soul has said ‘Hello.’ It’s been good because it’s hard enough with the transition, being anonymous helps me focus on the work.”

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”Tim Neverett” link=”” color=”#000000″ class=”” size=””]Getting back into the American League is still taking some getting used to[/perfectpullquote]

“Different” is the word he used quite often, especially when asked to compare Pittsburgh and Boston in terms of sports towns. “The biggest difference that I’ve found here is that the media eats its own. The media looks at the media almost as much as the story as the players and the athletes. The talk shows here are just looking to rip,” he said.

Being able to handle criticism is a job requirement, he added. “They kill the TV guys, they kill the other writers, they kill the other talk show hosts, they kill everybody here. It’s not really as friendly a place in terms of the media,” he said laughing. “Pittsburgh is a kinder, gentler place.”

But don’t mistake his honesty about the realities of his new market for anything but admiration and appreciation. Having grown up in the region, and been a Boston sports fan prepared him for the harshness he’s encountered. “You have to have a certain thickness of skin to work here. And I knew that going in. So by having lived here, grown up here, lived in the city, growing up in the suburbs, being around this in the past as a member of the media when I was younger, I knew the lay of the land.”

Even with a past steeped in the Red Sox traditions, he still marveled at the overall reach the team has.

“The fan base here is huge. The Pirates fan base is great, and it’s big. This one is bigger because of the market size,” he said noting that on a recent trip to Maine the prevalence of Red Sox gear was overwhelming.

The fans’ attitude is different too, he added.

“You’re sold out every night. And these people live and die for this team. And if the fans didn’t complain on talk radio and if the media didn’t complain in the press, that means they didn’t care. And they care. I’ve never seen a market where, if they lose one game, people are screaming for the manager’s head. It’s incredible,” he said shaking his head with a smile. “They are diehards. And they know everything.”

[perfectpullquote align=”left” cite=”Tim Neverett” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“Pittsburgh is so much kinder, so much gentler and so much more easy-going than it is here. I grew up around it, I’m used to it, so I love it. But somedays you shake your head and you go, ‘These people are crazy.’”[/perfectpullquote] Despite his enthusiasm for his new role and coming back home, there are definitely things Neverett misses about Pittsburgh.

“I miss the guys I worked with directly, I miss the organization, the people in the organization, I miss the ballpark – I miss a lot of things about Pittsburgh,” he said. Some of the things he misses most are the antics that took place in the broadcast booth with his colleagues Bob Walk, Steve Blass, Greg Brown and John Wehner.

“I often thought if we had a pay-per-view channel just for commercial breaks and when we were off the air after games that would be a good seller,” he said laughing. “They were all just so much fun to work with, so fun to be around,” he added.

Of Walk’s recent tumble in the booth in Seattle, he said that was typical behavior. “It doesn’t surprise me about Bob,” he said. “It’s fun that fans get a chance to see something goofy in the booth, because that’s just the tip of the iceberg with him. There are so many things people never saw or never heard. I do feel bad for that chair though,” he deadpanned.

It was that sort of camaraderie that made leaving the Pirates difficult, he said. “The whole situation I had there was really, really good,” he said. “It wasn’t like I was looking to run away from Pittsburgh by any stretch, in fact if the phone never rang, I would still happily be there.”

But ultimately, family always comes first. “I get to see my family – my brother, my sister, my extended family, my parents, quite a bit more than I have in the last 25 years. And that made the decision for me as time went on,” he said.

And while it meant leaving a job he loved, getting to make up for some of that lost time with his family, and do it for his hometown team, is a pretty good deal, he admitted. “When I come here, it’s like stepping back in time. I still get to go to the park and do baseball every day and that’s what I love to do.”