Red Sox announcers heat up Bangor fans Castiglione, Trupiano share playoff tales

BANGOR – On the same night New England Sports Network was reliving one of the most heartbreaking moments in Boston Red Sox history, 400 Sox fans gathered inside the Bangor Civic Center to celebrate the most heartwarming.

For the second straight year, Red Sox radio announcers Joe Castiglione and Jerry Trupiano ventured north to share hot stove baseball talk and tales with fans. At the same time they were talking, NESN was replaying the 1986 World Series’ infamous game six.

This year’s gathering featured a delightful twist, however, as the second edition of Bangor all-sports radio station WZON’s An Evening with Joe & Jerry was subtitled the “World Champions Edition.” Ah, it’s a phrase that never gets old.

Castiglione and Trupiano, who have called Sox games together for the last 12 years, had to brave the elements and several weather-related complications to arrive in Bangor Wednesday, two days after the most massive snowstorm in 27 years paralyzed most of Massachusetts and forced the duo to postpone their Monday night appearance.

“We had 25 inches in Marshfield and another 10 inches today,” said Castiglione, who has been one-half of the Red Sox’ radio duo for the last 22 years.

“I got down as low as 15 miles an hour on the drive to Logan [International Airport] this morning,” said Trupiano, who lives in Franklin, Mass.

Appearance fees aside, this was an appointment both announcers were doing their darnedest to keep.

“This is something that Joe and I have both grown to look forward to,” Trupiano said. “We didn’t know what to expect last year because we’d never done anything like this before, but it’s a great way to starting talking and thinking about baseball again in the middle of all this winter and the fans here in Maine are just great.”

Everything from hot dogs to soda to popcorn was on hand as hundreds of Sox fans – most sporting stylized “B” baseball caps and either team jerseys or world champions shirts and jackets – streamed in. It was cold and snowy outside but downright balmy inside.

The duo shared anecdotes and stories and traded observations about the past season before a rapt audience, relived some of the most memorable moments from Boston’s 2004 World Series championship season, and fielded questions for 95 minutes before doing an informal greeting session and signing autographs afterward.

Both announcers admitted they never thought the Red Sox would come back after getting down three games to none to the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series.

“We thought the season was over,” Castiglione said frankly.

“I told Tim McCarver I’d see him next spring and he said ‘Hey, it’s not over yet,'” Trupiano added.

The pair was presented with proclamations from the State of Maine by Peter Baldacci, brother of Gov. John Baldacci, and the City of Bangor by city councilor Danny Tremble, who remarked that former Red Sox manager Grady Little was still stuck in his driveway because “he can’t pull the starter” on his snowblower – referring to Little’s failure to relieve Pedro Martinez before the Yankees rallied to beat Boston in game seven of the 2003 ALCS.

Some of the other “diamonds” unearthed at the session included the following:

. Tim Wakefield, who Trupiano called a gamer and a “pro’s pro” and Castiglione said will be in the Sox hall of fame someday, volunteered to give up his game four start to help manager Terry Francona save his taxed bullpen in the 19-8 loss to New York in game three.

. Curt Schilling has a personal masseuse who was given a World Series ring by the Arizona Diamondbacks.

. When asked by Castiglione what first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, who was traded Wednesday night, was going to do with the ball used to make the last out in the World Series, Mientkiewicz said “I gave the last one from the Yankees series to Keith Foulke, but I’m keeping this one.”

. Castiglione refers to Sox first baseman/designated hitter David Ortiz as “Senor October” after his clutch postseason.

. Rather than raucous and rowdy, Trupiano said the plane ride home from St. Louis after Boston completed a four-game World Series sweep was “one of the quietest I’ve ever been on.”

. The auxiliary broadcast booth which Trupiano and Castiglione were placed in for the World Series as announcers for Boston flagship station WEEI (850 AM) was the same one Trupiano was allowed to use by famous announcer Jack Buck when Trupiano was first breaking into broadcasting. Trupiano would tape his calling of Cardinals games and have Buck do critiques of them afterward.

. Neither announcer considered the World Series to be anticlimactic, as many Sox fans have suggested, because “if they’d lost, it would have taken some of the luster off the Yankees series.”