Alanna Rizzo hasn’t been at NESN long, having joined the network in late April after the Red Sox season had already begun.
She already has a smart and amusing sense of her role, particularly when it comes to hosting the occasional alternate game broadcast, “Unobstructed Views,” which features freewheeling personalities Jonathan Papelbon and Jared Carrabis.
“When I was hired, it was made clear that NESN wants it to be a different type of broadcast, a different type of approach. It doesn’t need to be rigid or have the same type of flow as a normal broadcast,” she said.
“On the primary broadcast, Dave O’Brien and Lou Merloni and Will Middlebrooks when he’s there pay attention to the game and do what the baseball fan wants to see in a conventional broadcast, and they’re great at that,“ she said.
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“But there are a lot of other things that are fun to talk about too, and that’s where Pap and Jared come in with all of their different stories of, ‘I remember this in this situation,’ or ‘It takes me back this year when this guy did this,’ and if I can just make sure that they don’t drop a ton of f-bombs in there and go off the ledge and keep Pap out of jail, then I’m doing my job.”
So far, so good for Rizzo, who has some experience working with unpredictable personalities. She’s had two prominent stints at MLB Network, with the most recent one contributing to the Chris “Mad Dog” Russo-hosted show “High Heat” from 2021 until it was canceled in November.
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She had easy chemistry with Russo — “He’s the best, and exactly the same off the air and on,” she said — and she’s establishing it with Papelbon and Carrabis.
“I think there’s been fun chemistry between the three of us and we’ve only done about three or four shows, so it will only get better as we get used to the rhythms of working together,” she said.
During her career as a host and reporter, Rizzo has found herself situated on the other side of the Red Sox at memorable junctures. She was in her first year as a Colorado Rockies reporter — she started in September — when that team went on a late-season tear and faced the Red Sox in the World Series. She later spent seven seasons as part of SportsNet LA’s Dodgers coverage team, including during the 2018 World Series.
“It’s interesting to look back on those World Series,” she said, “because it’s clear that both times the Red Sox were the better team. The Dodgers were really good in 2018, but that Red Sox team was so talented from top to bottom.”
Rizzo has called New England home base for a few years. After the Dodgers won the World Series during the COVID-abbreviated 2020 season, Rizzo made the decision to leave the job and move to the Boston area to be with her then-fiance, former MLB catcher and Rhode Island native Chris Iannetta.
They married in November 2022.
“I wasn’t certain after leaving the Dodgers what my approach was going to be, but I didn’t want to be done with the industry,” she said, “but I needed to make a decision to come to the East Coast for sure because me being in LA and Chris being here made things a little more difficult.”
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So she reconnected with MLB Network and Russo, and she also maintains a couple of other baseball media gigs, including for the “Foul Territory” network — where her assignments include hosting a weekly podcast with Ken Rosenthal — and as a contributor to Sportsnet’s Toronto Blue Jays coverage.
It made all the sense for her to become part of NESN’s coverage. The wheels were put in motion when Tom Caron mentioned to management that someone ought to give her a call and gauge her interest.
“I’m so happy it worked out this way,” said Rizzo, who beyond ‘Unobstructed Views’ also fills in for Caron in the studio and Jahmai Webster as the in-game reporter. “I’ve gone from doing 200 games a year for the Dodgers for seven seasons, including spring training and postseason, to doing this, and it’s been really fun. At this point I want that work-life balance, and NESN has provided that.”
Draft choice was welcome
ESPN and ABC featured two broadcasts of the first round of the NBA Draft: One with Stephen A. Smith, and one without. Smith makes me laugh on occasion, but I’ve been burned out on his NBA takes since before the playoffs began, so you can guess which one I chose.
The Stephen A.-free ESPN version, which included host Malika Andrews and analysts Jay Bilas, Andraya Carter, and Kendrick Perkins. Good choice by me, though Perk was Perk and Andrews made a couple of uncharacteristic mistakes. She referred to Blazers draft pick Cedric Coward as “Colin Cowherd,” the FS1 host who was high on no one’s draft board. More egregiously, she mispronounced the name of Nokomis High School in Newport, Maine, where Cooper Flagg played his freshman year.
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Mainers will eventually forgive her.
Chad Finn can be reached at [email protected].