Before Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, few people believed that the Boston Red Sox, winless through three games against the New York Yankees, would be able to stave off elimination, let alone take the series.
After all, no baseball team had ever come back from 0-3 to win a best-of-seven series. Certainly not this franchise, which hadn’t won a championship in 86 years and was on the brink of upping it to 87.
But longtime Red Sox radio voice Joe Castiglione believed Boston baseball could make miracles. And he inspired Pedro Martinez to believe, too.
“There were times where I was a little bit sarcastic about our chances and all that, but Joe kept saying, ‘One of these days, we’re gonna catch up to the Yankees, and we’re gonna beat them up, and that’s it! All it takes is just overcoming the Yankees, and then we’re gonna be fine,’” Martinez recalled at Fenway Park on Sunday, after Castiglione’s retirement ceremony. “And that’s exactly what happened. Like a wise man always telling you what’s about to come, and he did.”
Martinez was one of several former Red Sox players who returned home to fete Castiglione before the last game of his 42nd and final season in the booth. However, the Hall of Fame pitcher and broadcaster have shared a special bond for nearly 30 years.
“I told him today for the first time, we have the only thing in common that probably nobody else has: I never pitched on an empty seat in Fenway Park. Never did,” Martinez said. “And I must say, Joe might be the only man that can say, ‘I called every single pitch Pedro threw in Fenway Park for the entire time he was here.’
“The only time I came back (as the opposing pitcher), Joe called it, too. So it really is interesting that me and him are the most unique friends and have some of the most unique moments. Never pitched on an empty seat, nobody else called one of my pitches, that it wasn’t Joe.”
Martinez first began to understand that their relationship went deeper than the typical player-media member acquaintance when Castiglione introduced him to his family.
“That’s when I realized that I was more than just a player for Joe; I was a friend,” Martinez said. “It’s just respect and love for Joe, someone so professional, you never saw Joe mad at anything. And I’m so glad I can call myself Joe’s friend, because that’s the kind of attitude you want to have, especially if you’re going to do it for so long.”
Martinez’s first several seasons in Boston were filled with personal triumphs, but as the collective goal continued to elude the club, he leaned on Castiglione, who’d been living it long before the pitcher arrived in 1998.
“From my days in the Dodgers Academy, I knew a little bit about Boston. I knew about Pesky Pole, I knew who Johnny Pesky was. I saw the Bucky Dent painful homer, I saw all those things! I knew about all those things and the pain that Boston was going through,” Martinez said. “But with Joe, you had the time to relive some of those memories and make sure that they were the way I heard them, because Joe lived through it. And to have the opportunity to just talk to him and see his attitude, even though we failed him so many times, was a great lesson not only for me, but for all of us in baseball: the resiliency and the positive attitude every single year in spring training.”
Hearing that Martinez felt the team had “failed him,” Castiglione chuckled. “No, they didn’t!”
“There were moments of frustration for me, I really went to Joe,” Martinez said. “I couldn’t understand that Boston was just as frustrated as I was when we didn’t win. And then all of a sudden we won, and everybody seemed to be like, a lot more relaxed, including me! That includes me! I was a lot more relaxed after I was able to be part of the 25 guys that pulled it off for Boston. Ever since, it’s a very unique relationship.”
Castiglione was nearly two decades into his Red Sox tenure by the time the ‘04 team “reversed the curse.” Ever-humble, he credits Martinez for giving him a reason to believe.
“You had to believe in him. He’s such a great pitcher and such an intelligent guy. He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever been around,” the broadcaster said. “You watched him pitch, you just saw the stuff, and you had to believe in him.”
Even now, in the 20th anniversary of that historic season, Martinez describes the whole thing as “surreal.”
“It’s hard to imagine that we might be able to pull that off if you put us in the same situation, that’s how surreal it is,” he said. “But Joe got the satisfaction of calling everything about it.”
On that October night in 2004, as the finish line on 86 years of misery drew near, Castiglione tried to figure out what he’d say when the moment came. How to call the dream fans had waited see to come true since before ball games were even on the radio.
“I remember thinking about all the clever things I could say if it was going to happen,” Castiglione said. “And then I realized you can’t script it. You just hope it was something definitive. Not a check-swing or diving catch, did he catch it or didn’t he? Simple ground-ball to the pitcher was fine, and then the crowd played.”
The moment is legendary. So, too, is what Castiglione ended up saying.
“Ground-ball, stabbed by Foulke! He has it! He underhands to first, and the Boston Red Sox are the World Champions! Can you believe it?”
Sunday wasn’t a clinching game per se but it was the deciding game of Castiglione’s career. Very different moments, but the emotions were similar.
“I was sort of numb,” he said. “Sort of felt like the ninth inning in St. Louis in ‘04: in the zone and no distractions.”
Two seasons, 20 years apart, both closed out with Castiglione calling a win.
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