XM MLB Chat: Joe Castiglione interviewed in Sports Media Guide!

Joe Castiglione is the best. Glenn Geffner, the worst, is completely convinced that he, Geffner, is the greatest baseball announcer in history, deserves his chair in the Red Sox booth and will have it as long as Larry Lucchino is alive. Perhaps it's already known whether Geffner is returning to Red Sox radio in 2008--it's too depressing to even think about. Happily, Castiglione was interviewed in Sports Media Guide and said things Geffner and Lucchino would never understand:

"Q. Is talking too much a concern?

A. Yes. You have to let it breathe. You have to back off of superfluous information when the game is on the line. Set the scene, the count, where the runners are, who are the runners and who is up next, who is up in the next inning. Anticipate what the audience wants to know - the audience wants to know the same things you want to know. If I'm watching a game I get irritated if they don't tell me who's up next and who's available to pinch hit. You have to focus on those things when the game is on the line. The rest of the time you might tell a story or laugh about something or come up with an anecdote. No game has the same pace - you have to change gears. Baseball is the only sport where the defense controls the ball.

Q. Do young announcers rely too much on stats?

A. I don't know if we can generalize by age. Guys older than me were stats crazy. Stats should tell a story - not just be a number. Given a choice between a human interest story and a stat go with the human interest story - people are more interested. Some audiences are turned off by stats. Not that you have a great story every day, but it could be something you read or hear on the way to the ballpark."