Longtime Boston Red Sox radio voice Joe Castiglione was announced as the winner of the 2024 Ford C. Frick Award Wednesday, which is awarded by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum to one broadcaster each year for excellence in the broadcasting medium.
However, the call from the Hall to Castiglione didn’t exactly go off without a hitch.
During an appearance on WEEI’s Gresh and Fauria after the announcement was made, Castiglione revealed he accidentally hung up on the Baseball Hall of Fame.
“They said, If you are the winner, we’ll call between 10:30 and 12 o’clock on the day of the announcement. If you’re not selected, you will hear nothing’,” Castiglione said. “And this morning, I was watching the clock. I tried to ride the exercise bike and stretch, and all those kinds of things to sort of divert attention. And then at 11:21, that call came in.
“People that know me know I’m a technical putz. And when the phone rang, I saw the 607 area code and knew it was Cooperstown. I figured that was the good news. But instead of hitting the speaker button so my family could hear it, I hit the red button that hung up on the call.”
As Gresh and Fauria laughed uproariously, Joe Castiglione explained the torture of the moment.
“It was the most agonizing 40 to 60 seconds for that call to come back that I’ve ever experienced,” he said.
