Joseph John Castiglione was born on March 2,1947 and is an American retired radio announcer, best known for his 42 seasons announcing games of the Boston Red Sox of Major League Baseball.
25 Facts About Joe Castiglione
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Joe Castiglione was born in Hamden, Connecticut, and graduated from Colgate University with a BA in Liberal Arts.
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Joe Castiglione was the radio voice of Colgate football and baseball while a student.
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Joe Castiglione began his career in Youngstown, Ohio, broadcasting football games for $15 a game, and as sports reporter for WFMJ-TV in 1972.
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Joe Castiglione states that he was a New York Yankees fan as a kid, then closely followed the Pittsburgh Pirates because they were the closest to Youngstown, and likewise became an Indians fan after moving to Cleveland.
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Joe Castiglione called a handful of Milwaukee Brewers games for pay-cable channel SelecTV in 1981.
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Joe Castiglione joined the Red Sox broadcast team in 1983, teamed with Ken Coleman.
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Joe Castiglione admitted to not being in the booth when the ball rolled through Bill Buckner's legs in the 1986 World Series, as he was in the clubhouse covering Red Sox' seemingly impending victory celebration.
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Joe Castiglione became nationally known when the team won the 2004 World Series, with his broadcast of the end of the game.
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Joe Castiglione has it, he underhands to first and the Boston Red Sox are the world champions.
11.
In 2011, O'Brien became the lead announcer with Joe Castiglione moving back to the secondary announcing role.
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On September 20,2018, as part of a promotion called "A Rivalry in the Booth", Joe Castiglione switched places with New York Yankees radio broadcaster John Sterling in the fourth inning.
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Joe Castiglione fell out of his chair, and proceeded to finish the commentary with co-commentator Neverett after the incident.
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Joe Castiglione worked with Will Flemming and Sean McDonough as secondary announcers, along with former player Lou Merloni.
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On September 15,2024, Joe Castiglione announced his retirement from the Red Sox' broadcast booth following the 2024 season.
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Joe Castiglione stated that he would continue in an ambassador-type role for the team.
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Joe Castiglione ended his broadcast as he traditionally did at the close of each season since 1989, reciting a passage by Bart Giamatti from the essay "The Green Fields of the Mind".
18.
On July 28,2022, Joe Castiglione was honored in a pregame ceremony at Fenway Park for his 40 years of broadcasting the Red Sox; the ceremony included Roger Clemens presenting Joe Castiglione with a plaque.
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On October 22,2023, the Baseball Hall of Fame announced that Castiglione was one of 10 finalists for the 2024 Ford C Frick Award, presented annually by the Hall of Fame for excellence in broadcasting.
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On December 6,2023, Joe Castiglione was named as the 2024 recipient of the award, and later accepted the award during the Hall of Fame induction weekend in July 2024.
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Joe Castiglione has occasionally called college football and college basketball, most notably including games of Lafayette College and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where he worked alongside his oldest son, Duke, who has worked as a sportscaster with WCVB in Boston.
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Joe Castiglione has worked as a lecturer in the department of Communication Studies at Northeastern University, teaching a course on sports broadcasting.
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Joe Castiglione has taught at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire.
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In 2004, Joe Castiglione published a book called Broadcast Rites and Sites: I Saw It on the Radio with the Boston Red Sox.
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However, much of the book is about the 30 years that Joe Castiglione spent in the broadcast booth and the personal relationships he built up over that time, woven into the ups and downs in Red Sox history.