He was a voice of comfort to a child terrified of the dark.

Whenever the Red Sox played a night game, the child reluctantly climbed into bed with a transistor and listened to three gentlemen chase away his fears of things that go bump in the night with tales of Boston’s bravado at Fenway Park.

I was the child who counted on those soothing voices of Ken Coleman, Ned Martin and Mel Parnell to lull myself to sleep, even though I was certain the bogeyman was lurking under my bed.

My fears of the dark have passed, and with those thoughts of dread went Coleman, who passed away last week at 78.

He became an unwitting companion to a boy who wrestled with his own imaginary demons of the night. I never met the trio of Red Sox announcers whose voices resonate in my childhood to this day, but their lullabies of home runs by Yaz and baseballs bouncing off the Green Monster put my fears on hold for nine innings.

When Coleman said, “Hey neighbor, have a ‘Gansett,” the night seemed friendly, and those monsters suddenly disappeared for the evening. Of course, my fears returned each dusk, but now I had three broadcasters and a bunch of bat-wielding, professional baseball players on my side to take on the creatures of the night.

I despised sleep and made my parents pay dearly for my fear of the dark, but I soon found a way to drown out creaking noises of a new house that had begun to settle with time. I discovered that a simple transistor radio and the sounds of Major League Baseball could take my mind off monsters that were hiding in my well-lit closet.

Each night before I hit the sack, I performed a series of rituals to make my bedroom monster-proof. I checked for the hideous Frankenstein under my bed, the Mummy (no, not that mommy) in my closet and opened my darkened window to see if that blood-sucking Dracula was making his way up the side of my house for a midnight snack.

Despite my apprehension, I pressed on and threw on the 150,000-watt bulbs that lit up my room like the light of day. I switched on my trusty transistor, allowing Coleman’s play-by-play account of Rico Petrocelli’s throw to first base drift through my room. And there was nothing like hearing the crowd at Fenway heckle the opposition as Coleman tried to speak over the vociferous fans.

Somehow, I took comfort in knowing that just 12 miles from my doorstep were thousands of fans braving the scary darkness to watch Beantown’s finest at the finest ballpark in baseball. And by the seventh-inning stretch, Coleman’s on-air banter and the sounds of Fenway fainted away as I finally drifted off to sleep.

Thanks to Coleman, Martin and Parnell, I developed an appreciation for listening to games on a radio and for announcers who really knew how to call a game without the yelling and insincerity that you see in today’s broadcast booth.

These guys were good. That is why they will always be remembered fondly by loyal Sox fans, and that is why Coleman will always be thought of a first-class act in a field where announcers come and go like one-hit wonders in the game of baseball.

I am no longer afraid of the night, and am grateful to that trio of gentle voices … although the Red Sox still make my hair stand on end every August.

Tony Blasi is a staff editor who can be reached at [email protected].