Joe Castiglione was installed as the 48th winner of the coveted award; he’s the team’s longest tenured Voice

As you likely know, Joe Castiglione has received the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame for his outstanding contributions as a broadcaster. Baseball is often is associated with statistics, but as Frick winner, Vin Scully liked to say, that too many announcers use Statistics are used by announcers like a drunk uses a lamppost, For support, rather than for illumination. Let’s try some stats and hope they illuminate.

• Castiglione is the 48^th broadcaster to win this award, which began in 1978 with awards to Mel Allen and Red Barber. Since then, one broadcaster has been honored each year, and many fans have complained regularly about dozens who have yet to get the award.

• Castiglione has broadcast for three teams: Cleveland (1979 and 1982), Milwaukee (1981), and Boston since 1983. He becomes the fourth broadcaster for the Milwaukee franchise to go into the wing at Cooperstown, beside Bob Uecker (1971- ), Pat Hughes (1984-95), and Jimmy Dudley, who did the games in 1969 for the Seattle Pilots before they moved to Wisconsin the next season. Castiglione becomes the fourth Cleveland announcer to get it, following Jack Graney (1932-53), Dudley (1948-67), and Allen (1968). (Michael Green, left, is a respected historian at UN)

• Other Red Sox voices have gotten the call from Cooperstown, Curt Gowdy (1951-65), Bob Murphy (1954-59), Ken Harrelson (1975-81), and Jon Miller (1980-82) are the others. That brings up a couple of points.

• Castiglione is the first recipient honored almost entirely for his Red Sox work. While Gowdy was beloved in Boston, he was also the network voice of baseball for a decade with NBC (1966-75).

• Murphy built his profile with the Mets, be it though with his Oklahoma accent, (1962-2003). Prior to his long connection with the Mets, Bob began with the Red Sox, where  between with the Orioles. Harrelson similarly is considered a broadcaster for the other Sox, having done the White Sox for nearly four decades, while Miller has been with Baltimore, the Giants, and ESPN, with stops in Oakland and Texas.

• With Castiglione still going strong, the Red Sox have had Frick winners in the booth for half a century, starting in 1975 with Harrelson–granting that Ken Coleman (1966-74), Ned Martin (1961-92), and Jim Woods (with the Sox from 1974-78 and with another 25 years in the majors before and after) also should be in.

• The team with the longest current streak of Frick winners in their booth is the Cubs, since 1948: Jack Brickhouse (1948-81), Harry Caray (1982-97), and Pat Hughes (1996- ), with Gene Elston (1954-57) and Milo Hamilton (1955-57, 1980-84) along the way. Before that, it was the Dodgers, who had a Frick-winning announcer from their first regular broadcasts in 1939 with Barber and 67 years of Vin Scully until Jaime Jarrín retired after 64 seasons in 2022, along with Al Helfer (1939-41, 1955-57), Ernie Harwell (1948-49), and Buck Canel (1957). These short lengths of time suggest consistency in the booth, while some of the announcers have had short tenures, many have spent large chunks of their career with the same clubs, as Castiglione has.

• The teams with the most Frick recipients are the Yankees and Giants, each with 12. That’s cheating a bit, since they shared broadcasts for several years. The roll call is as follows:

• Yankees—Arch McDonald (1939), Allen (1939-42, 1946-64), Al Helfer (1945), Russ Hodges (1946-48), Gowdy (1949-50), Barber (1954-66), Jerry Coleman (1963-69), Joe Garagiola (1965-67), Buck Canel (1970s), Harrelson (1987-88), Tony Kubek (1990-94), and Tim McCarver (1999-2001).

• Giants—McDonald (1939), Allen (1939-42), Helfer (1945, 1949), Brickhouse (1946), Hodges (1949-70), Harwell (1950-53), Lon Simmons (1958-73, 1976-78, 1996-2002), Bill King (1959-62) with the Giants and 25 with the A’s from (1981-1985) Then, Al Michaels (1974-76), Lindsey Nelson (1979-81), Jon Miller (1997-), and McCarver (2002). Again, both teams had long-serving broadcasters, but also fine announcers with brief tenures, whether because of retirement, sponsor issues, better opportunities, or just moving on.

• By having broadcast for three teams, Castiglione is fairly typical of Frick winners. Few have spent their careers exclusively with one franchise—Scully, Jack Buck, Bob Woolf, Jarrín, Marty Brennaman, Denny Matthews, Eric Nadel, and Graney are the only ones. Castiglione is well behind the most-traveled of the Frick winners, Helfer, who announced for eight teams (Pirates, Reds, Dodgers, Yankees, Giants, Phillies, Colt 45’s, and Athletics, in addition to the Mutual “Game of the Day”) and Hamilton with seven (Browns, Cardinals, Cubs, White Sox, Braves, Pirates, and Astros), almost all of the recipients have been more closely associated with one team than any other.

As it turns out, Castiglione is in good company. Then again, so are the other Frick recipients!