Sometimes you just get lucky. Growing up in Eastern Connecticut listening to the Boston Red Sox on the radio was like learning to walk– everyone did it. We all know that sitting on the back porch, sipping on a lemonade in the summer while listening to baseball is one of the best things we can do.I was so spoiled and I did not even know it.
My earliest memory goes back to 1975. The radio voice was none other than Ned Martin, a Red Sox Hall of Famer and Ford Frick Finalist. Martin is immortalized not only in Red Sox history, but baseball history, as his call of Carlton Fisk’s 12th inning home run in game six of the World Series rings in my ear as clear as day….
The 1-0 delivery to Fisk. He swings…long drive, left field…if it stays fair, it’s gone…HOME RUN! The Red Sox win! And the series is tied, three games apiece.
He was joined in the booth by other notables such as Ken Coleman and Jon Miller. What a start. It is no wonder that I always wanted to be on the radio.
Joe Castiglione followed and man oh man what a career he has had. The new Hall of Famer has been with the Red Sox since 1983. Much like Martin before him, he has been the summer voice of New England and was there when the Red Sox broke the curse. Yes it was real.
Not just on the radio, but the television side of things is just as incredible. How about this as a list of TV announcers I was able to grow up with:
Ken Coleman
Dick Stockton
Sean McDonough
Don Orsillo
The members who filled the analyst spot were just as great. Johnny Pesky, the great and colorful Hawk Harrelson, Bob Montgomery, the Rem Dog..Jerry Remy, Dennis Eckersley, and Steve Lyons.
Joe Castiglione is finishing his career this season and it is hard to imagine a summer without learning about the great sales in the fruit aisle of Stop and Shop. Just like it has been hard to not hear the, “Buenas Noches” from the one and only, Jerry Remy.
I have been lucky to have had the pleasure of listening to the greatest game, being narrated by some of the best to ever do it. Do yourself a favor and catch one of Joe’s final games. I know for sure, on September 29 that I’ll be listening when Joe signs off for the final time.
Just make sure you have that cold glass of lemonade and you are sitting on the back porch- it makes all the difference in the world.
