By Magdalena Hernandez

Broadcast Rites and Sites: I Saw It on the Radio with the Boston Red Sox
by Joe Castiglione, with Douglas B. Lyons (Taylor Trade Publishing; Lanham, Maryland; 2004; 352 pages; $26.95)

As a genre, the memoir is currently suffering a popular backlash. Alcoholism, incest, Prozac-popping—readers have (rightfully) tired of the seamy stories many memoirists dredge up to cash in on personal tragedy.

Yet what could be more boring than an autobiography without drama? The formula very nearly hinges on troubles, those overcome and those unsurmounted. At the very least, a rewarding memoir requires a life lived during interesting times.

Thankfully, sportscaster Joe Castiglione has plenty of wholesome agony and ecstasy to mine for our entertainment. He’s been the radio play-by-play guy for the Red Sox for twenty-two years, qualifying him as one of the most famous voices in America.

And working alongside baseball’s most mercurial (or is it ill-fated?) franchise guarantees interesting times. Castiglione called the 1986 World Series loss. Last year’s American League Championship failure. Need any more proof of pain?

Part memoir, part travelogue, Broadcast Rites and Sites weaves stories from Castiglione’s professional career with anecdotes from his personal life. The book is loosely organized by theme, recounting everything from broadcasting ups and downs to trips to American League cities. Castiglione discusses the importance of scouting, the joys of fantasy camp, the country’s best stadiums. In later chapters, he writes about topics especially close to his heart: his favorite personalities, the Jimmy Fund, the sports broadcasting classes he teaches at Northeastern.

Of course, fans are treated to a plethora of unusual details from exceptional games. Castiglione’s prodigious memory, which catapulted him to fame in a sport that reveres stats, rewards the reader here.

A New Haven, Connecticut, native and graduate of Colgate and Syracuse Universities, Castiglione started down the road to broadcasting after realizing he wasn’t a particularly gifted athlete. His first commercial radio job came while he was still a Colgate undergrad. He went on to stints at radio and television stations in Syracuse, Youngstown, and Cleveland.

Then, in 1979, Castiglione became the Cleveland Indians’ television broadcaster. Four years later, after a few more job changes, he was offered a seat behind the Red Sox radio mic, alongside mentor Ken Coleman.

During his long tenure in Boston, Castiglione has witnessed thrilling chapters in Red Sox history. Yet some of the book’s more interesting anecdotes are behind-the-scenes snapshots.
After the 1986 World Series loss, for instance, he recalls a poignant show of mixed emotions: “Outside the clubhouse, we saw Mets pitcher Bobby Ojeda, who had pitched so well in the series, in tears as he hugged his former Red Sox teammates.”

Endearingly, Castiglione reveals he can get as fired up as the ordinary civilian. His angriest moment? It came in 1993 when a fan ran onto the field at Yankee Stadium and cost Boston a win: “Everybody thought that the game was over and that the Red Sox had won 3-1. But no. The game was not over because ‘time’ had been called. . . . Yankees won 4-3.”

A Red Sox review wouldn’t be complete without revisiting the heartbreak of the 2003 American League Championship series. Castiglione’s rehash is chatty and absorbing. At the end of game seven, he says, he spoke “the toughest words I have ever had to say on the radio” (“Home run, and the Yankees win the pennant”).

Commiseration followed, some from outside Boston: “A few days later, I got a call from someone who could really feel our pain, my old friend Pat Hughes, the radio voice of the Chicago Cubs. Pat said, ‘Can you believe, we both had three-run leads in the eighth inning with one out and nobody on, and both of us lost the pennant?”

Broadcast Rites and Sites is also a travel diary, filled with places to see and restaurants to visit. Castiglione’s job has afforded him the opportunity to travel extensively among American League cities, as well as, to a lesser extent, the National League towns.

He seems to have left no restaurant unsampled. A consummate chowhound, Castiglione includes some passages that read like a Zagat’s guide. Craving chicken Sorrento in Baltimore, or chicken-fried steak in Arlington, Texas? He can tell you where to go. Adventurous foodies may leave unsatisfied; the author tends to eschew the trendy for the tried-and-true (especially if it’s Italian fare).

The travel talk can leave the reader feeling a little empty, too. Cities are often discussed in such broad terms that a meaningful sense of overall character or specific attractions just doesn’t come through. The same might be said of the thumbnail sketches of the players and baseball insiders Castiglione has known; several chapters are devoted to these quick portraits, one strung simply after another.

The energy picks up again in the book’s last two chapters, however, as Castiglione reveals how he endeavors to help others via his work. He’s volunteered with the Jimmy Fund, a Boston charity that raises money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, since he joined the Sox. He’s taught sports broadcasting at Northeastern since 1985, and at New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce College since 1997.

Overall, Castiglione has written a real pastiche, with all the attendant charms and flaws. The direct, conversational tone that’s such an asset in the booth doesn’t always translate as well onto the printed page. The fun facts that pepper the narrative are occasionally distracting. Sections that seem agreeably impressionistic contrast others that feel disjointed.

I would have gladly traded the information on parking fines in La Jolla or kayak rentals in Tampa Bay for more in-depth discussions about Castiglione’s personal or professional experiences. More judicious editing might have righted these and other missteps.

And yet, the book remains an entertaining read, with a fresh perspective on our national pastime and obsession.

Speaking of perspective, Castiglione weighs in on the current team. His prediction (at least while writing the book): 2004 will prove to be the year of the Red Sox. Stay tuned.

Magdalena Hernandez, MBA’02, is a senior editor.

Some Shorts
in the Dark
by John A. Curry; AuthorHouse; 2004

In his latest book, president emeritus John A. Curry, LA’56, MEd’60, H’96, showcases his knack for drawing colorful characters. This collection of short stories and essays explores the human condition while engaging in vivid storytelling.

Of particular note: An essay on chancellor Kenneth Ryder, which offers Curry’s fond take on his predecessor in the president’s suite.

Fans of the author’s crime fiction will be glad to find several short stories that deliver the same incisive style and quick pacing that distinguish his novels.

Castings: Monuments and Monumentality in Poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, James Merrill, Derek Walcott, and Seamus Heaney
by Guy Rotella; Vanderbilt University Press; 2004

Monuments are tricky things. After all, they are mirrors for the culture that created them, as difficult to understand as any other social construct.

Guy Rotella’s book is a fascinating, close reading of creations by five monumental modern poets. It examines how the quintet regard monuments—along with all the cultural issues such symbols condense—as well as how they regard poetry as monument.

Rotella, a professor of English, himself emerges here as a lyrical stylist. Combining theory, history, and biography, the author weaves arguments capable of intriguing even readers not already familiar with the poetic luminaries he discusses.