Archives for December 6, 2023

COOPERSTOWN – (Staff Report from Official News Release) – Joe Castiglione, who has called Red Sox games on the radio for a record 41 seasons, has been selected as the 2024 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually for excellence in broadcasting by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Castiglione will be honored during the Hall of Fame Awards Presentation as part of Hall of Fame Weekend, July 19-22, 2024. Castiglione becomes the 48th winner of the Frick Award, as he earned the highest point total in a vote conducted by the Hall of Fame’s 15-member Frick Award Committee.

The final ballot featured broadcasters whose main contributions came as local and national voices and whose careers began after, or extended into, the Wild Card Era. The 10 finalists were: Joe Buck, Gary Cohen, Jacques Doucet, Tom Hamilton, Ernie Johnson Sr., Ken Korach, Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper, Dan Shulman and Castiglione.

“Bringing knowledge and passion to the booth every day for more than four decades, Joe Castiglione has given voice to the greatest era of Red Sox success in the broadcast era,” said Josh Rawitch, President of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. “Starting with the team in 1983 in Carl Yastrzemski’s final season, Joe has connected generations of Red Sox fans with a delivery that has become part of the New England fabric. His calls of the team’s four World Series wins in the past 20 seasons provided fans with memories that will echo forever throughout Red Sox nation.”

Born March 2, 1947, in Hamden, Conn., Castiglione earned an undergraduate degree at Colgate University and took his master’s degree at Syracuse University – each about an hour from Cooperstown – before beginning his career at WFMJ-TV in Youngstown, Ohio. After moving to Cleveland to work for WKYC-TV, he began calling Indians games in 1979 before working Brewers games in 1981 and then returning to the Indians’ booth in 1982.

Joining the Red Sox radio team in 1983, Castiglione has shared the microphone with partners including Bob Starr, Dave O’Brien, Jerry Trupiano and Will Flemming while also teaching broadcast journalism at Northeastern University, Franklin Pierce University and Emerson College.

Inducted into the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2014, Castiglione is the longest tenured broadcaster in Red Sox history and has called historic moments that have included both of Roger Clemens’ 20-strikeout games and four no-hitters. In 2022, the home Fenway Park radio booth was named in his honor.

The 15-member Frick Award voting electorate, comprised of the 12 living recipients and three broadcast historians/columnists, includes Frick honorees Marty Brennaman, Bob Costas, Ken Harrelson, Pat Hughes, Jaime Jarrín, Tony Kubek, Denny Matthews, Al Michaels, Jon Miller, Eric Nadel, Bob Uecker and Dave Van Horne, and historians/columnists David J. Halberstam (historian), Barry Horn (formerly of the Dallas Morning News) and Curt Smith (historian).

The list of 10 Frick Award finalists was constructed by a subcommittee of the electorate that included Brennaman, Costas, Hughes, Halberstam and Smith. The Ford C. Frick Award is voted upon annually and is named in memory of the sportswriter, radio broadcaster, National League president and baseball commissioner. Frick was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1970.

For a complete list of Frick Award winners, click here.

As established by the Board of Directors, criteria for selection is as follows: “Commitment to excellence, quality of broadcasting abilities, reverence within the game, popularity with fans, and recognition by peers.”  To be considered, an active or retired broadcaster must have a minimum of 10 years of continuous major league broadcast service with a ball club, network, or a combination of the two.

The Frick Award election cycle rotates between a composite ballot featuring local and national voices whose careers began after, or extended into, the Wild Card Era in four consecutive years, followed by a fifth year featuring a ballot of candidates whose broadcasting careers concluded prior to the advent of the Wild Card Era in 1994. The cycle began with the 2023 Frick Award, with composite ballots of local and national voices continuing with the Awards in 2024, 2025 and 2026 before the pre-Wild Card Era ballot is considered for the 2027 Award.