Much in my life has changed, including the meaning behind Voice For All Seasons, since I created this blog shortly after moving to the Boston area in 2008.
At the time, mine was literally a voice for every season of the calendar. Winter, spring, summer and fall I was somewhere — often in the middle of nowhere — talking basketball, baseball and football; while writing about the same and then some.
Unfortunately, that somewhere also happened to be elsewhere. Working mainly in the Mid-Atlantic and only occasionally in New England, I was a virtual unknown in my adopted home.
As a native of Central New York state, my real-life education includes college in the Midwest (Dayton) and career stops in three different time zones. Yet wherever I’ve lived, there’s been a connection to Boston — whether by cable’s TV38 in my early youth or a long string of coincidences ever since.
Old enough to remember many a backyard at-bat mimicking Yaz, with my hands held high overhead, I grew up listening to Ned Martin and Fred Cusick among so many announcers whose way with words helped birth a dream I began chasing as a 12-year old.
Long after my childhood vision became a vocation, I reached out to another of the region’s iconic broadcasters, the great Gil Santos, voice of the Patriots. I wanted him to hear my own football play-by-play, which I’d been calling for the Naval Academy since 1997.
Eventually, with help from a point in the right direction by Gil, I was given an opportunity to introduce myself to his boss at the newly-created 98.5 The Sports Hub — a.k.a., the flagship home of the Pats — in 2009. I left that meeting and returned to my weekly autumn commute between Logan and BWI Airports for Navy games.
But several years later, as the 2012 regular season — Gil’s last — was winding down, I heard from the powers that be at The Hub. I might have departed without a job on my initial visit to 98.5’s home office, but not without making a solid first impression.
Given a chance to give them another quarter or two of the Midshipmen on the radio, I was invited for a second sit-down more than three years later. Within a couple of months, I was asked to follow (not replace!) a Patriots Hall of Famer and one of broadcasting’s all-time greats.
Ten seasons, six AFC Championship appearances and four unforgettable Super Bowls have followed. And by now, more than a few have become familiar with who I am. Meanwhile, my voice now gets most of its exercise only during the fall.
Which isn’t to suggest that there isn’t much I wish to share the rest of the time. So, I’m back in the ‘business’ of blogging. Sometimes about football (which I also do for 98.5 The Sports Hub). And at other times, anything but the game.
Said another way, I’m here to sound a voice — my voice — for all seasons.
BOB SOCCI 