Boston.com – For someone so used to saying hello, it’s not easy saying goodbye.

Mike Lynch, the gracious and good-humored Channel 5 sports anchor known as “Lynchie’’ to just about anyone familiar with the Boston sports scene over the last thirty-something years, will anchor his final sportscast on the 11 p.m. news Thursday before transitioning into a correspondent role.

In case you haven’t read between the lines, which I don’t really blame you for, local sports media and your boy Joey B….don’t exactly see eye-to-eye. I don’t think they’re all that intelligent. They don’t have a ton to say. Mostly, I think they take it a bit too much to heart that their job is to troll enough to command ratings. Such palpable disengenuousness does absolutely nothing for me.

This relates mostly to sports radio, but local sports tv is not completely innocent. They are part of the wheel after all.

Mike Lynch is, and always has been, different. He’s been a fixture of my sports fandom for as long as I can remember. Literally the face I see when I think of who brought me highlights growing up in a house with no cable, so no Sports Center.

He comes into people’s home every night, with tonight being the last night, with a friendly, warm, charasmatic presence and brings them the latest in Boston sports. In recent days, he’s been jovial and exultant when we have another ring or parade either locked up or in sight. For my entire childhood, some dark times indeed for Boston sports, he was consoling and hopeful. Almost like a trusted Uncle, one of the ones who didn’t show up to Christmas shitfaced every year.

But time has passed. Maybe Mike Lynch sees twitter and the instant nature of news these days and realizes that sports fans don’t need him as much. I don’t think that is totally the case. I hope it’s just his time to move on to something else, while keeping that correspondent role on the side.

They’ll call him in from the pen if necessary.

-Joey B.