Remembering Guy Mainella

• Growing in the Boston area in the early ’70s, where sports was — and still is — a heated year-round topic, everyone knew the name of Guy Mainella, a true sports-talk radio pioneer who hosted the wildly popular Calling All Sports on WBZ-AM/Boston for most of the 1970s.

According to Chad Finn of the Boston Globe, Mainella, who had been battling Parkinson’s disease for the last 20 years, died Monday evening, June 10 at his home in Scarborough, Maine. He was 85 years old.

Mainella joined WBZ-AM on the news side in the mid-’60s. However, on July 15, 1969 — his son’s Scott‘s 8th birthday — Mainella launched Calling All Sports as its sole host. While not the first sports-talk radio show in the country, it was a new format in Boston, and Mainella’s timing couldn’t have been better, with Bobby Orr and the Bruins about to capture the region’s hearts — and the Stanley Cup — in 1970. That’s Mainella pictured on WBZ in October 1973.

Calling All Sports ran for 90 minutes Tuesday through Friday at 6:30pm, and at 7pm on Saturdays. Mainella, who later worked with Glenn Ordway at WRKO in the ’80s —  developed an easy rapport with guests and callers alike.

Mainella left WBZ in 1978, two years after he transitioned from sports to general talk radio at the station. He was replaced on Calling All Sports by Bob Lobel and Upton Bell. “Loved him on the radio,” said Lobel. That was a [WBZ] lineup that couldn’t be better. Him, Gerry Williams, Larry Glick. Guy was the embodiment of a thinking man’s sports host. His humor and style were sensational and at a time when we all listened to such unique programming. He was a true unicorn.”

Mainella is survived by his wife, Carole, son Scott, and his daughters Lisa and Lauri. [Photo: 1973 File / Paul Connell / Globe Staff] [Special thanks to Kevin McDonald]