Joe Castiglione recognized for 30 years on the job

[dyeingeye]

"Roger" Moret is Rogelio Moret and is Hispanic.

 

[CTListener]

Add Juan Marichal to the list of Latin American Hall of Famers acquired by the Red Sox.

Only the first name mentioned in the original post. Funny how things hide in plain sight. Sorry.

 

[thirdendorsed]

My mistake on Rogelio Moret, I should have known better. But then I came up in an era when Topps called Roberto Clemente "Bob" and Jose Azcue was "Joe"

The Azcue-Tom Satriano trade made me wonder what sports talk radio would have done with Azcue's rebellion, D. Williams losing control of the team and the idea of Gerry Moses as the "catcher of the future."

And to go a step further, can you imagine what the patter would have been like if sports radio was 24/7 during the Billy/Reggie/Tony/Yaz/LaHoud issues of the early 70s?

Speaking of the pre-sports radio era, I remember well the Ken Harrelson trade of '69. Segments of the public were outraged, and started to call the only Saturday night talk show in town, Howard Nelson on WEEI (Con-ver-sation for a Sat-ur-Day night). Howard knew he had a good issue, knew that as a native Minnesotan he didn't know a heck of a lot about the Red Sox, so he kept a caller on the line for hours to serve as de facto co-host. A pretty bright in-show move and one wonders if Dan Griffin wasn't behind it.

It ended up being a good deal, Siebert was a workhorse who was involved in one of the epic non-pennant-influencing regular season games of all time, the Vida Blue-Siebert game of '71 or so.

 

[CTListener]

Siebert was a workhorse who was involved in one of the epic non-pennant-influencing regular season games of all time, the Vida Blue-Siebert game of '71 or so.

My dad and I went to that game! I think both pitchers were undefeated going into the game, and I suggested we go to it that afternoon. Funny how we just got in the car, went to Fenway and walked up and got decent grandstand seats along the first-base line. These days, the game would have sold out well in advance. You could still do the spur-of-the-moment thing in the '80s; I made a similar decision in the '80s, when Roger Clemens and Nolan Ryan hooked up five days after a classic duel in Texas. The rematch, of course, wound up a slugfest. Neither pitcher had much that night and the Sox won 7-6 with Bob Stanley getting the victory in relief.

I believe 1971 was also the year that Siebert, a good-hitting pitcher anyway, went on an unbelievable tear at the plate early in the season. (Something he'd only be able to do for one more season; 1973 brought the DH.) "Epic" was certainly a good way to describe that confrontation with Blue, who was the talk of baseball. It also was a good way to describe Sonny's first half of the 1971 season.

 

[thirdendorsed]

Wilfred Siebert. Mel Parnell used to go Cousy on him and use his real name from time to time on WHDH "Wilfred 'Sonny' Siebert" around the time of his '66 no-hitter. Had 12 lifetime homers. six of them in 71. He had eight homers in all for the Sox. Earl Wilson had 17 and Gary Peters three, but Peters hit .250 (as did Boo Ferris) while the others flirted with the Mendoza line. Ned use to talk about gooooooood hitting pitchers on the broadcasts.

Siebert beat Blue, May 28, 1971. Going in Siebert was 9-0, Blue 10-1. Rico hit two homers. Boomer had the game winning RBI. Bobby Bolin saved it by coming on to get Dave Duncan who had homered off Siebert earlier (a rare good move by Kasko.) I listened to Ken, Ned and I think it was Pesky on WHDH, sitting at the kitchen table with my father (I don't think it was on TV but ours was usually broken) and they made it as dramatic as any game I ever heard on the radio but sitting there listening to it with the old man is a memory I cherish. Unfortunately, the constant din of cable television means instant highlights and I doubt any kid under 40 has any memory of sitting on the front steps, or in the back yard, or in the kitchen and listening to baseball on the radio with their father, or wearing a turtleneck sweater to school on a warm fall day to sneak the earphone from the transistor to your ear to try to catch the World Series on WCOP in a junior high school classroom

 

[RI Radio Nut]

Just remembering a game between the Sox and Yankees in the bronx on May 22, 1976 in which Dick Pole dueled with Catfish Hunter each carrying a scoreless tally into the ninth inning until Darrell Johnson removed Pole in the ninth in favor of lefty Tom House who ended up losing it in the 11th.

I still recall Jim Woods' course voice coming through the radio speaker "Dick Pole, the big right hander from Trout Creek, Michigan matching pitch for pitch and out for out with the man they call The Catfish."

Good stuff.