How the DJ for the Red Sox and Patriots gets fans psyched up
Meet TJ Connelly, who has perfected the art (and science) of a winning soundtrack for some of Boston’s best players and their fans.
It’s a typical Monday morning in late April, and TJ Connelly wakes at 4:30 to get to WBCZ, the station at Boston College, for his 6 a.m. radio show. From 9 to 2, he works as an entrepreneur and app developer in downtown Boston. Then, just before 2:30 in the afternoon, he arrives at Fenway to get ready for 3:20 batting practice.
Connelly is 39 years old, with flowing dark hair and a long beard. Today, he’s dressed in a ratty black golf shirt and gray checked pants. As the players trickle onto the field, Connelly looks through an open window in the production booth high above home plate. He’s standing before a Yamaha soundboard, black headphones around his neck, clicking on a laptop that holds more than 35,000 songs. And for the next seven hours, he will toil at what may be the world’s coolest part-time job: Fenway Park DJ.
Connelly grew up in Milton, and he played the drums, clarinet, and bass guitar. After high school, he skipped college and became a programmer. During the Internet bubble, money fell from the sky. But then the bubble burst. To make ends meet, he took a job as a bouncer at a college bar in Kenmore Square. There he spent long hours watching over the dance floor and paying close attention to the DJ. “He’s drinking for free, all the girls are talking to him, and he’s playing super-loud music,” Connelly says. “I was like, ‘Well, that’s better than my gig.’ ” So he decided to become a DJ.
Read the complete story at BostonGlobe.com. Don’t have a Globe subscription? Boston.com readers get a 2-week free trial.
