Joe Castiglione
From SoSH
- Has been a Red Sox radio announcer since 1983. Originally paired with Ken Coleman, he subsequently worked with Bob Starr, Jerry Trupiano, and presently Dave O"Brien.
- Teaches sports broadcasting at Northeastern University
- Author of the book Broadcast Rites and Sites: I saw it on the Radio with the Boston Red Sox
- Castiglione's famous call of the final out of the 2004 World Series:
"Swing and a ground ball, stabbed by Foulke. He has it. He underhands to first, and the Boston Red Sox are the world champions! For the first time in 86 years, the Red Sox have won baseball’s world championship! Can YOU believe it?"'
Career Achievements
Joe Castiglione (born in New Haven, Connecticut) is a radio announcer for the Boston Red Sox baseball team.
A native of Hamden, Connecticut, Castiglione graduated from Colgate University with a BA in Liberal Arts. Castiglione often playfully ridicules Colgate's sports teams during Red Sox broadcasts (he was the radio voice of Colgate football and baseball while a student). He then attended Syracuse University and received a MFA in their television-radio program. While in Syracuse, he worked a variety of on-air jobs for WSYR-TV (now WSTM-TV). He began his full-time career in Youngstown, Ohio broadcasting football games for $15 a game. His first major job as a sportscaster was in Cleveland in 1979, where he called Cleveland Indians games and did sports reporting for WKYC television.
Castiglione joined the Red Sox broadcast team in 1983, teamed with the late Ken Coleman. He admitted 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. After Coleman's retirement in 1989, Castiglione teamed with the late Bob Starr for 3 years. Upon Starr's departure in 1992 Castiglione became the lead announcer and was joined by Jerry Trupiano, forging a duo that would last 15 years -- a record for Sox broadcasting teams.
Ironically, Castiglione claims to have been a New York Yankees fan as a kid. He said in his autobiography that he then closely followed the Pirates because they were the team closest to Youngstown, and likewise became an Indians fan after moving to Cleveland.
In 2003-04, Castiglione wrote his aforementioned autobiography, Broadcast Rites and Sites: I saw it on the Radio with the Boston Red Sox along with Douglas Lyons. Castiglione is currently a Lecturer in the department of Communication Studies at Northeastern University, Boston, where he teaches a course on Sports Broadcasting.
NESN Red Sox play-by-play man Don Orsillo was among his students and broadcast booth interns. He has also taught at Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire.
He occasionally calls college football and basketball, most recently including games of Lafayette University and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where he worked alongside his oldest son, Duke, now a reporter for ESPN and Boston's WHDH-TV and formerly with New York 1 News.
