Report: Don Orsillo Out at NESN After This Season

Don Orsillo Photo by Sarah on Flickr/Creative Commons

WEEI’s Dennis & Callahan program is reporting that longtime Red Sox play-by-play announcer Don Orsillo is out at NESN after this season, “according to multiple sources.”

This will be Don Orsillo's final season on the Red Sox broadcast according to multiple sources.

— Mut at Night (@MutAtNightWEEI) August 25, 2015

Orsillo, currently in his 15th year with the Sox, is a workhorse. Though he prefers to work the entire 162-game schedule “in part out of fear of missing something important or memorable on a night off,” NESN mandated he and other talent take an in-season break to stay fresh. This didn’t sit well with the Globe‘s sports media critic Chad Finn.

“Still, it’s hard not to consider Orsillo’s vacation without some curiosity,” he wrote. “He has never wanted to do this before, and that raises the question of why NESN would want him to now.”

Orsillo last inked a deal with NESN in 2011, extending him through 2015.

“Don is one of the preeminent play-by-play announcers in the league and one of the reasons NESN’s Red Sox broadcast is considered among the best in the business,” Sean McGrail, NESN’s president and CEO, said in a 2011 release. “He brings passion and meticulous preparation to his work every night, along with a sense of humor that has endeared him to Red Sox Nation.”