This transcript was exported on Mar 30, 2021 - view latest version here. John Boccacino: Hello, and welcome back to be 'Cuse Conversations Podcast. My name is John Boccacino, the communications specialist in Syracuse University's Office of Alumni Engagement. I earned my Bachelors degree in broadcast journalism from the S.I Newhouse School of Public Communications in 2003 and later received my executive Masters degree in public administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in 2020. You can find our podcast on all of your major podcasting platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify. You can also find our podcast at [alumni.syr.edu/cuseconversations 00:00:44] and [anchor.fm/cuseconversations. 00:00:54] Joe Castiglione: It's a storytelling game. Baseball is all about stories. If you overdo statistics, it becomes too much like work for the audience. I mean, analytics are fine. They tell you a lot, but people don't want to hear in great detail about spin rates and all that kind of thing. They'd much rather have a story. Story tells... The picture is entertainment. You're trying to entertain as well as inform. And if you get too heavily into statistics for the listener, it's like an extension of their workday. This should be relaxation. John Boccacino: Our guest today is Joe Castiglione. The long-time radio play-by-play voice of the Boston Red Sox. He is the longest tenured member of the broadcasting booth for the Boston Red Sox since 1983, he has been the radio voice. So if you're in the Northeast and you're a Red Sox fan, you've heard Joe's voice. And there's something magical about baseball being called on the radio. And Joe has had the pleasure of doing this longer than any other radio voice in the proud history of the Boston Red Sox. Here in this degree, a Masters degree from Newhouse. in 1970 he also worked on the WAER radio staff at Syracuse. And he's our guest today on the podcast. Joe, I really appreciate you making some time. How are you holding up these days? Joe Castiglione: Thank you, John. Very good. We'll have a baseball the way it was last year, at least to start the season. That means we will not be traveling and we'll do the home games live and visiting games, the away games, off of TV monitor at least for the first half of the year. John Boccacino: None of us knew this time last year that sports was going to take a hiatus. We've never seen anything in our lifetime like COVID. What kind of challenges did that present to you? First of all, not even knowing what's going to happen with baseball, but when it resumed how did you handle that challenge of trying to call games during this most unusual of years? Joe Castiglione: Well, we were just happy to have baseball at all. It started in late July, played 60 games, so happy to get paid too. So that was a big plus. And the challenge is no fans, but they mixed in crowd noise and it did really work. I mean, it's certainly not authentic, but it worked to have some low crowd noise, both for the games that were unfolding in front of us when the team was home and for the road games doing off the TV monitor. The hardest part probably, and the most Joe Castiglione Podcast (Completed 03/30/21) Page 1 of 11 Transcript by Rev.com This transcript was exported on Mar 30, 2021 - view latest version here. disappointing part was no contact with anybody. I mean, I'd get to know players over the years. We had no contact with any player or manager other than Zoom. And that was the way it was. I mean we went to the fifth floor at Fenway Park. Nobody was allowed up there. We weren't allowed on the field or the clubhouse. And that's still the case today. So it may change the way sports is covered too. John Boccacino: Did you notice any difference in maybe how you were broadcasting a game? I know that the crowd plays such an integral part in both the action itself, the ambiance of being at a game, how did that affect you as a broadcast or not having a live crowd? Joe Castiglione: Well, it didn't affect the actual play by play of what was happening. It was the aftermath, where you recap a play and the crowd is still screaming because the Red Sox player hit a three Run Homer, you didn't have that. You did have a low crowd noise. So that was certainly an adjustment. You're at the mercy of the TV director too, because the TV director calls the shots. That was really something that we had no control over. And if he doesn't show you or the director didn't show you where the ball is, whether it's fair or foul, home run or whatever, you have to wait and wait for the definitive word. Boundary calls were especially tough, whether it was a home run or whether it was a foul ball because they take a tight shot of the foul ball, and they don't pull back really quickly to see whether the batter runner was circling the bases are going back to foul ball, they had for more. So those are some of the things that I think were the challenges, but it worked pretty well. And a lot of people told us they didn't know that we weren't live at those road games and it could be the wave of the future as much as we love being on the scene and having personal contact, it could be the wave of the future because the main counters save a lot of money. John Boccacino: Well, it's a testament show though, to the skill that you bring that a lot of your audience wouldn't be able to tell if you were there. I mean, it's one thing if there was a glaring gap and you're almost waiting for the result to happen, the fact that you could seamlessly pull off these calls and I'm sure there were situations where you just had to rely on your instincts, you've done this for so long it has to be part instinctual to a lot of your broadcast calls. Joe Castiglione: Oh, sure. Yes. And that's where experience really helps. I mean, if I were a young broadcast that just starting out, that would be extremely difficult, but you can follow patterns and it was not that tough an adjustment. It just wasn't as much fun, really. John Boccacino: The fact that the 2021 season is going to be starting come April 1st. I know you've been calling games down in Fort Myers, Florida for the Red Sox, spring training games. And those have been in person, right? You were down there actually calling those games. Joe Castiglione Podcast (Completed 03/30/21) Page 2 of 11 Transcript by Rev.com This transcript was exported on Mar 30, 2021 - view latest version here. Joe Castiglione: Yes we are in person including road games, we play in a pod. We play with the Atlanta Braves nine games there in North about an hour from here. The Minnesota Twins were five miles away in Fort Myers, eight games with them, Tampa Bay about 45 minutes away in Port Charlotte, eight games with them. And there are a couple of games with Baltimore, Sarasota that about an hour and 15 minutes in Pittsburgh and Brayden then, which is about an hour and 20 minutes. So that's pretty much the way they did it they keep teams in pods, close to home. John Boccacino: What is going to be the plan for this regular season, with your travel, with calling games at Fenway, what is your outlook looking like? Joe Castiglione: Well, right now we are not going to travel at least the first half of the season. Whether we travel in the second half, depends I think on what's happening with COVID and the new strains and vaccinations and that type of thing. So it's really too early to call, but I think our TV people are already under the understanding that they're not going to travel at all. So I would think it would be doubtful that we do too, unless of course we make post season. And last year, the only ones that the travel for postseason, the Tampa Bay Rays, the Dodger broadcasters did their radio games throughout the world series and throughout the players from their homes. Charlie Steiner was in his home. [Rick Muddy 00:08:00] was in his home. John Boccacino: I know Fenway Park is going to have, what I think, 12% capacity for games, which is a welcome sign to at least have the trickle back of getting closer to normalcy. Joe Castiglione: Yeah, it'd be about 4,500. Here it's retraining. It's 20% about 1900. John Boccacino: I want to go back in time a little bit and talk about baseball in general and your love for radio broadcasting. There's something special. Baseball is such a sensory sport. When you're there in person, you've got the smell of the fresh cut grass, and you've got the crack of the bat.