Will there be an exciting play like an inside-the-park home run or a triple play? A no-hitter? Will some rookie make his debut? Will he swing at the first pitch and slam it for a home run? A walk-off home run? Sometimes I hear people use the expression meaningless game. Sometimes they are referring to the last two or three games of the regular season after a team has either clinched a playoff berth or been mathematically eliminated. Every major league pitcher, in any game, is trying to get the batter out.
Every batter is trying to get a hit. Every outfielder wants to make the catch or make the throw to keep it to a single. Every infielder is trying to field that bunt. And when a team misses the playoffs by just one game that 1—0 loss in April where somebody took a called third strike to end the game seems even more important.
In , I saw the St. The Miracle play at the stadium the Twins use for spring training games. My father, Frank, the son of Sicilian immigrants, grew up in New Haven and walked to Yale University, which he attended on a full scholarship. He then went to medical school in New York City and later worked as a general practitioner in his old New Haven neighborhood.
After serving in World War II, he decided to specialize and became a dermatologist, practicing until the age of 85, three years before his death in November Dad taught me to read baseball scores and box scores before my ABCs.
He was a Yankee fan back then. New York was much closer to Hamden than Boston. I loved to play sports, especially baseball, but realized by the age of 10 that being a professional athlete was not in the genes. I became a baseball card collector and flipper, a fungo hitter, and a Wiffle ball player.
Although my friends and neighbors thought I was crazy, I would pretend to broadcast my backyard fungo games daily. I went to Colgate University, where I majored in history. I was Joey C, the Big Cheese! More importantly, I got the opportunity as a freshman to broadcast Colgate football and basketball games.
I did every football game, home and away. But Colgate baseball games were not broadcast. The games were considered too long and too dull. Also, the baseball field had no electricity for our equipment. That was the year I went to my first game at Fenway Park, standing in the bleachers to watch the Washington Senators beat the Impossible Dream team on a late-inning double by Hank Allen. I was aiming toward a broadcasting career, either in sports or as a disc jockey.
I concentrated on a career as a sportscaster and I sent out lots of audition tapes. But when I got no good responses, I got a job broadcasting high school and then semi-pro football games and doing a sports-talk show in Meriden, Connecticut. Later, I became a super-utility announcer doing spot duty on sports and news, and as a TV movie host. I also was a color analyst on Syracuse University basketball games.
This was my first TV job and I enjoyed it. Five nights a week, I did the pm and pm sports wrap-ups. I also covered Youngstown State football games and high school basketball and football games. I would go to Pittsburgh to do interviews and stories on the Pirates when the Youngstown station would let me have a cameraman. But my station was very cheap, so I continued to send out audition tapes to stations in bigger cities. Neither one of us skied. They had an opening for a reporter to do sports updates and news.
My tape got me an interview, and it also got me excited. It would be quite a step up from Youngstown. But they never filled the position. Of course, if I had taken that job in Pittsburgh, I would not have met Jan. I went to my station manager in Youngstown to ask his permission, which he refused to grant.
I should just have done the shows without asking. This only strengthened my determination to move out of Youngstown. While I was overjoyed to get out of Youngstown, where there was no room for advancement, the friends I made there lasted forever, including, of course, Jan and her family.
Just down the street from our apartment in Broadview Heights was the headquarters of radio station WJW. I filled in there on weekends. I was working from pm to am. Four years later, I turned down a job offer in major league baseball as the public address announcer for the Cleveland Indians. I was supposed to do a piece for The Today Show that morning about the fight but I canceled and went to the hospital in Willoughby, Ohio. Thomas Frank Castiglione was born at pm. I was there. Over the next few years, with changes in station management, I was demoted from a broadcaster to a producer, but I stayed with it because we needed the money.
Football Hall of Famer Paul Warfield was hired for my on-air job. I was back on the air. Not bad. Flynn, who answered his own phone, interviewed me on a Monday. He told me to call him the following Wednesday, February 14, at pm to find out whether I got the job. He was going to make the official announcement in an hour. I called Jan, my parents, and the rest of my family.
More than letters and notes awaited me when I returned to our home in Solon, Ohio. Everyone who knew me knew how long I had dreamed of and worked toward a job broadcasting major league baseball.
The Indians trained in Tucson, Arizona, a city I had never visited. Although for economic reasons my station was not going to broadcast any spring training games, my family and I spent two weeks in Tucson.
Jan was pregnant with our daughter Kate. During my first year with the Indians, their manager was former catcher Jeff Torborg. We have remained friends for more than 30 years. My father and my Uncle Charlie were in Boston for my first game. After one game in Boston, we flew home to Cleveland. Our plane was hit by lightning, a scary experience that reduced one player to tears. Unfortunately, the Indians also had a tendency to lose. They lost 10 in a row in June.
But we were in Chicago and United Airlines was on strike. Once I got word that Jan had gone into labor and that a neighbor had taken her to the hospital, I made other travel arrangements and arrived at the hospital just after am.
Mary Katherine Kate Castiglione arrived at pm. Jan was not very happy that while she was in labor, the doctor in the delivery room wanted to talk baseball with me. He handed me the ball, on which he had written: This is in honor of your new daughter. To Katie. May she live to be Katie, now married and the mother of two, still has the ball.
Toward the end of the season, Channel 8 was awarded a three-year extension on its contract to broadcast Indians games. But the two sides disagreed over money, and the extension was canceled. This was a severe blow to all the people who worked on the games: producers, cameramen, engineers, and me. Broadcasting Cleveland Indians games was virtually all I did at Channel 8. But after the season, the station found some other work for me as a sports reporter and a weekend anchor. Meanwhile, the Indians did not have a TV outlet for the season.
They eventually signed with Channel 43, which hired its own broadcasters. The two games I broadcast were well received, but I was still trying to get back to a regular baseball broadcasting job. On St. He also offered to fly me back and forth from Milwaukee to do Brewers games. I went to the library to find out about the Brewers—who were then in the American League—and about Milwaukee. We really hit it off. Everybody I worked with in Milwaukee treated me very well, even though I was sort of an outsider.
Bill and I are still quite close. The Brewers won the second-half title and a playoff spot. The Brewers win the second half! The Giants win the pennant! The station offered me a full-time job, but I rejected it. It was still my dream to be a full-time baseball broadcaster.
The Sports Exchange, a regional cable network, was started in Cleveland, and I was the first person hired. They were going to broadcast Indians games. The cable network was owned by Ted Stepien, who the year before had given me an exclusive: he was going to buy the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA, which I broke on TV-8 on the pm sports.
Ted was a pioneer, forming a regional sports channel, though he was never taken seriously by the Cleveland media. We went on the air with the Indians in spring training. My broadcast partner was one of the greatest pitchers of all time, Hall of Famer Bob Feller, a Cleveland legend. So we went off the air in September. All but two of the employees were laid off. Luckily, I was not. I looked for another job. I was still looking for a new job. One of the commentators at Channel 8 was Casey Coleman, with whom I helped produce special features for the station.
He did that himself. I just opened the door for Casey. That meant that Ken Coleman was looking for a new partner. It was rather unusual then, but quite common now, for an FM station to be the flagship.
But Jack wanted the Red Sox to make the announcement. I was elated, and called Jan immediately with the good news. But first, I swore her to secrecy. He was upset because we were supposed to meet that morning to discuss our Indians telecasts and I was to bring the donuts. Ted initially refused to take my call. You missed the meeting. Ted had no donuts! I said, "Joanie, tell. Open navigation menu. Close suggestions Search Search.
User Settings. Skip carousel. Carousel Previous. Carousel Next. What is Scribd? Cancel anytime. Start your free 30 days Read preview. Publisher: Triumph Books. Released: Apr 1, ISBN: Format: Book. Joe Castiglione is one of a few select announcers whose voice harkens fans back to the home field of their favorite team. In this chronicle, the beloved broadcaster offers his insider account of one of the most dominant baseball teams of the past decadefrom the heartbreaking World Series and the turbulent s to the magical American League Central Series and World Series, the championship season, and the state of the team today.
About the author JC. Related to Can You Believe It? Related Books. A War in Dixie: Alabama Vs. And, you know, those people are not reflected in ratings necessarily. They're not the target audience for advertisers. But it's a big part of our audience. And I think of that. And I think that that is a responsibility that we have, and a blessing to be able to bring some joy into the lives of people who may be infirm or elderly, as well as those, you know, who are just great baseball fans and love the game.
On what he would say to someone who wants to follow in his footsteps:. To prepare for a baseball game, we have a regular routine. You know, you read the sporting prints You get to the ballpark, you interview players. But you also prepare [over] a lifetime. And that means by studying baseball — because everything in baseball is predicated on what happened yesterday and the day before and the week before and the month before.
The year before. The decade before. Like a pyramid. Most sports don't quite work that way, because rules have changed and the type of athlete has changed.
Yes, baseball players are better athletes than they were a generation ago, bigger and stronger. But the game really hasn't changed, other than the designated hitter. The only real rule change was in , when they moved the pitcher's mound back to feet 6-inches.
And I think there's so much tradition, that you have to know the history of the game. And that's what I mean by lifetime preparation. The reading you do, even collecting baseball cards and reading the back of the cards! Reading biographies, reading the history of the game. All of those things, I think, are necessary to prepare to be a broadcaster. And to be a good storyteller — to pick up stories — you have to be a good listener. When I go to the ballpark and I'm on the field, my job is to listen to what people say and then, you know, file it in my brain, or take notes, or whatever, so that I can tell stories to entertain and inform fans.
So, being a good listener, and being a good researcher, and having the curiosity, is critical. On what his walkup music would be, if baseball broadcasters were granted such a flourish:. Probably it would be something from Motown, my favorite sound. Maybe 'Get Ready,' by the Temptations to get ready for the game.
But there have been some moments where 'Tracks of My Tears' would fit! Though we've overcome that with four world championships in 15 years.
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