A Tip of the Cap to Mr. Castiglione

TonyPenaNeverJuiced

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Jun 7, 2015
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Tomorrow (Thursday, July 28, 2022) marks 40 years of Joe Castiglione in the booth with the Sox. A pre-game ceremony will celebrate the Voice of the Red Sox, a man who has guided us through the downs, the ups, the downs again, the weirdness of the 90s, extreme highs, Bobby V lows, and heights again (and all in between). Not a broadcast goes by I don't think about how lucky I am to hear Mr. Castiglione on the call for the Sox. From WPLM to WRKO to WEEI to those of us who can only hear him on the WWW, a tip of the cap to Joe Castiglione.
 

RedOctober3829

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Jul 19, 2005
55,298
deep inside Guido territory
Tomorrow (Thursday, July 28, 2022) marks 40 years of Joe Castiglione in the booth with the Sox. A pre-game ceremony will celebrate the Voice of the Red Sox, a man who has guided us through the downs, the ups, the downs again, the weirdness of the 90s, extreme highs, Bobby V lows, and heights again (and all in between). Not a broadcast goes by I don't think about how lucky I am to hear Mr. Castiglione on the call for the Sox. From WPLM to WRKO to WEEI to those of us who can only hear him on the WWW, a tip of the cap to Joe Castiglione.
Love this. Joe is the one constant through all 4 WS titles. My childhood is marked by listening to his voice on the radio.
 

TonyPenaNeverJuiced

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Jun 7, 2015
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My childhood is marked by listening to his voice on the radio.
Mine was marked by those summer and early fall trips as my family left Yankees territory and drifted into signals I presume originated in Springfield, visiting family in the vast chasm between the two. My father behind the wheel, we'd listen to whatever station was still playing 40's, 50's, and 60's music until he was confident our police-auction-bought Lincoln was in the range of Joe's voice. Our speed seemed to slow when the dial found a fleeting stat and the drive got agreeably longer. Of course, when we reached our destination, I was a typical brat and lapped up the moving image. I now find a happy medium with MLB.tv's radio-over-tv audio option.
 

bigq

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Jul 15, 2005
11,083
Castiglione is the best. For many years I watched Red Sox games on TV. Over the past few years I have been listening to games on the radio and rarely catching them on TV. There is something comforting about hearing the same voice now that I listened to in the car as a child decades ago. The closest thing I can compare it to is Mike Gorman with the Celtics however I have a picture of him in my mind from many years of television broadcasts. I’m not sure I have ever seen a picture of Castiglione and I certainly could not pick him out of a lineup. All I have is a friendly faceless voice and I think I would like to keep it that way.
 

nolasoxfan

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Jun 11, 2004
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Joe is the reason I have always preferred listening to the radio broadcast over watching games on the tube.
Well, that and the Yankee ball-washing that goes on on ESPN and Fox.
Congrats on a tremendous achievement, Joe!
 

dirtynine

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Dec 17, 2002
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Spent many a childhood night falling asleep to the static-y sounds of Joe & Ken Coleman in WTIC out of Hartford. I lived in upstate NY and the dial had to be just right, and a clear night helped. Their voices (along with the chime that signified the secret player of the game) are burned into my memory banks. I’ve always felt like Joe has had command of several great pitches, to use a baseball metaphor - his fastball is intense and rapid play by play (with very good description and voice inflection) and he can also change it up with easy-going detachment and storytelling. He also has a way of letting silence signal dissatisfaction (with the game, with what his partner said, etc) which I’ve always loved. He’s New England’s Vin Scully, and I’ll miss him fiercely when he inevitably reads “Green Fields of the Mind” for the last time.
 

Ale Xander

Hamilton
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Oct 31, 2013
72,428
Tomorrow (Thursday, July 28, 2022) marks 40 years of Joe Castiglione in the booth with the Sox. A pre-game ceremony will celebrate the Voice of the Red Sox, a man who has guided us through the downs, the ups, the downs again, the weirdness of the 90s, extreme highs, Bobby V lows, and heights again (and all in between). Not a broadcast goes by I don't think about how lucky I am to hear Mr. Castiglione on the call for the Sox. From WPLM to WRKO to WEEI to those of us who can only hear him on the WWW, a tip of the cap to Joe Castiglione.
Castiglione is the best. For many years I watched Red Sox games on TV. Over the past few years I have been listening to games on the radio and rarely catching them on TV. There is something comforting about hearing the same voice now that I listened to in the car as a child decades ago. The closest thing I can compare it to is Mike Gorman with the Celtics however I have a picture of him in my mind from many years of television broadcasts. I’m not sure I have ever seen a picture of Castiglione and I certainly could not pick him out of a lineup. All I have is a friendly faceless voice and I think I would like to keep it that way.
2nded
 

nattysez

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Sep 30, 2010
8,429
My freshman year English teacher in HS complained about Castig's voice, but I'd been listening to him since I was 7 and, until then, had never noticed his voice was unusual for a play-by-play guy. Of course, I also grew up with Johnny Most, so I was inured to my team's games being called by guys with an unusual timbre. Casting has truly the voice of a region for 40 years.

I know calling a game isn't exactly working in the mines, but it's pretty remarkable how long some of these guys are able to put up with constant travel, late night dining and the rest and still call a great game night after night.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Castiglione is a master at his craft, as well as at restraint. We are so fortunate that he's been the voice of Red Sox baseball through the bad and the good.

In short, a he's a great hang.
 

E5 Yaz

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I'd like to think that Joe's career would culminate in the HoF, but then I always thought Ned Martin would get there and it never happened. He should get in just for dealing with Trupiano.
 

Van Everyman

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I'd like to think that Joe's career would culminate in the HoF, but then I always thought Ned Martin would get there and it never happened. He should get in just for dealing with Trupiano.
Ned didn’t call four WS wins tho. Castig’s “Can YOU believe it?” call is one of the all-timers, particularly given the moment.

I kind of liked Trupiano. His voice blended really well with Joe’s. When he would say “WAY back” on homers it was exciting. Of course they weren’t always homers …

Castig is the best tho.
 

fieldslikebuckner

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Oct 31, 2005
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Spent many a childhood night falling asleep to the static-y sounds of Joe & Ken Coleman in WTIC out of Hartford. I lived in upstate NY and the dial had to be just right, and a clear night helped.
Same here. Back in the 1980s, every summer I'd visit my grandparents cottage in northern Maine close to the Canadian border and spend weeks there. No tv, two decades pre-internet, but every night Joe and Ken Coleman would come on WTIC to call the Red Sox game (much static some nights, crystal clear others) and I'd peacefully drift off to sleep. Now, four decades later, my job requires I sleep away from home frequently yet I still listen to Joe call the games on the (internet) radio every night, just like when I was young. It's like listening to a bed time story each night and it still as comforting as it was when i was young.
 

Bergs

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Jul 22, 2005
21,612
I kind of liked Trupiano. His voice blended really well with Joe’s. When he would say “WAY back” on homers it was exciting. Of course they weren’t ever always homers …
Fixed!

My childhood was the end of Ned and the beginning of Joe, back when pickup baseball games were what you did on summer days, and someone always brought a radio if the Sox were playing.
 

joe dokes

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Jul 18, 2005
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Fixed!

My childhood was the end of Ned and the beginning of Joe, back when pickup baseball games were what you did on summer days, and someone always brought a radio if the Sox were playing.
I can't find it now, but I seem to recall reading that when he came here, ahead of his family, he was making so little money he was sleeping on Ken Coleman's couch.
His story about covering the Wepner-Ali fight when he working in Cleveland has doubled me over every time he's told it.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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Sep 9, 2008
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I think in the win it thread I got to it late and most of the good ones (that weren't personal private people) were taken except Joe. I really wanted to hear him call a championship.
 

RedOctober3829

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Jul 19, 2005
55,298
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As a whole, I am a complete and utter radio nerd. I love everything(well most everything) about sports radio and broadcasting. I grew up wanting to be a broadcaster and kind of regret not following through on it. Not only would I listen to Sox games, but I would also tune in at night to WFAN and listen to the Mets and Bob Murphy when it was a West Coast game. Man he was great too. Most night, I'd fall asleep listening to grainy sports talk from Joe Benigno on the FAN.

Castig just has something in his voice that makes me flash back to when I was a kid. It just makes me feel good.
 

moretsyndrome

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in '86, I was working 4-5 nights a week from 3:00 -midnight in a little gas station kiosk, running credit cards and selling $1 packs of Marlboros all night. Had a little boombox and started tuning in more and more as the Sox seemed to be legit for the first time in a while. First it was the 20 K game, and by the time they swept NYY in June, I was all in again.

I listened to so much baseball that summer, including the Hendu HR vs the Angels, and parts of the WS. Coleman was always my favorite, and Castig took a little getting used to, but he easily won me over. For a kid who was obsessed with the Sox and thought he'd "grown out of it", '86 brought it all back, and I doubt that would have happened to the extent that it did if it weren't for all those radio broadcasts I took in that summer.

I still go out of my way to get the radio going, especially when McDonough is around. Those broadcasts can be incredible.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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As a whole, I am a complete and utter radio nerd. I love everything(well most everything) about sports radio and broadcasting. I grew up wanting to be a broadcaster and kind of regret not following through on it. Not only would I listen to Sox games, but I would also tune in at night to WFAN and listen to the Mets and Bob Murphy when it was a West Coast game. Man he was great too. Most night, I'd fall asleep listening to grainy sports talk from Joe Benigno on the FAN.

Castig just has something in his voice that makes me flash back to when I was a kid. It just makes me feel good.
Very well said, his voice reminds me of Cape Cod in the summer; he’s been a constant for so long and it’s incredibly comforting.
 

Philip Jeff Frye

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Oct 23, 2001
10,229
Joe has always been the sound of the summer for me. Nothing better than driving around on a hot, humid night with the ragtop down and hearing Joe calling the game. I still find it kind of jarring when I turn on the radio and someone else is calling the game, although I like McDonough being back in the fold.

I'm not sure I'm remembering the details correctly, but my grandmother (who died in 1988 or thereabouts) had his father (or maybe brother?) as a doctor at some point in her life.
 

fieldslikebuckner

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Oct 31, 2005
404
The Boston-NY DMZ
Joe has always been the sound of the summer for me. Nothing better than driving around on a hot, humid night with the ragtop down and hearing Joe calling the game. I still find it kind of jarring when I turn on the radio and someone else is calling the game, although I like McDonough being back in the fold.

I'm not sure I'm remembering the details correctly, but my grandmother (who died in 1988 or thereabouts) had his father (or maybe brother?) as a doctor at some point in her life.
Father and (mostly) brother, both named Frank, were my dermatologists for many years.
 

StupendousMan

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Jul 20, 2005
1,909
I'm another listener in upstate NY. Once the sun goes down, I can usually pick up WTIC out of Hartford, though it often comes and goes in 30-second cycles. After many years of listening, it doesn't seem like a real ball game unless I hear Joe calling the action.
 

bankshot1

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Feb 12, 2003
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Sometimes you need to listen to a game on the radio, either because you're driving or at the beach, but sometimes because you just have a need to listen to a well-called game by a guy who knows the game and the pace that it should be delivered.

And Joe delivers. He's a good listen.
 

TomBrunansky23

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May 4, 2006
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Spent many a childhood night falling asleep to the static-y sounds of Joe & Ken Coleman in WTIC out of Hartford. I lived in upstate NY and the dial had to be just right, and a clear night helped. Their voices (along with the chime that signified the secret player of the game) are burned into my memory banks. I’ve always felt like Joe has had command of several great pitches, to use a baseball metaphor - his fastball is intense and rapid play by play (with very good description and voice inflection) and he can also change it up with easy-going detachment and storytelling. He also has a way of letting silence signal dissatisfaction (with the game, with what his partner said, etc) which I’ve always loved. He’s New England’s Vin Scully, and I’ll miss him fiercely when he inevitably reads “Green Fields of the Mind” for the last time.
God bless WTIC...snuck the radio into bed many a night when I was a kid to listen all the way from Rochester.
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
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Jan 10, 2004
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Love Joe as I love few people or things in life.

My memory is in my teens and early twenties, at a time when things were not very well settled for me driving around the suburbs at night in my crappy '77 Impala, on nights where I had no one to hang out with and nothing to do, just driving around and listening to Joe and Bob Starr (who was meh honestly).

I don't subscribe to mlb.com video because I like listening to Joe.