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“Stat Boy” Tony Reali makes his last correction on PTI today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb4Un0p8eUc

I’m lucky that I get to keep working with him on Around the Horn, and I’m thrilled that he gets to share his thoughtfulness, quick wit, enormous energy, huge creativity, and [hopefully] Mick Jagger impersonation with an even broader audience on Good Morning America. – Erik Rydholm, PTI’s executive producer, on Tony Reali

Today is the end of an era – or the “end of error.”

After 13 years, Tony Reali is signing off as Pardon the Interruption’s “Stat Boy,” the show’s ebullient ombudsman in charge of errors and omissions and mediator for “Oddsmakers,” “What’s the Word?” and other fun, competitive segments featuring show hosts Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon.

In April, ESPN announced a contract extension for Reali, who will continue as host of Around the Horn. The difference: He will soon do so from a Times Square studio in New York, rather than the ABC bureau in Washington, D.C., where PTI is based. He also will begin working as a social media contributor for ABC’s Good Morning America in the coming weeks.

With the move to the Big Apple, Reali – now married and a new dad – will say goodbye today (5:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) to PTI and the family he has worked alongside since the then-23-year old recent Fordham grad was hired as the show’s researcher three weeks before its debut in 2001.

Reali posted a wonderful farewell message on the PTI Facebook page, and he produced the video seen above to mark the occasion.

Erik Rydholm, the longtime executive producer of PTI, ATH and Highly Questionable, sums up what Reali has meant to the show: “Tony Reali is a co-founder of PTI and he’s not really leaving because he’s part of our DNA. No one in our group knows more, cares more, works harder, eats better, or does more cool things with his hair.

“He’s been the conscience of PTI for 13 years, saving our butts – and likely our jobs – time and again. I’m lucky that I get to keep working with him on Around the Horn, and I’m thrilled that he gets to share his thoughtfulness, quick wit, enormous energy, huge creativity, and [hopefully] Mick Jagger impersonation with an even broader audience on Good Morning America.”

(L to R) Tony Kornheiser, Michael Wilbon and Tony Reali on the set of ESPN's Pardon the Interruption (Phil Ellsworth/ESPN Images)
(L to R) Tony Kornheiser, Michael Wilbon and Tony Reali on the set of ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption (Phil Ellsworth/ESPN Images)
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