Joe Castellano

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Joe Castellano (born June 24, 1962 in Hackensack, New Jersey) is an American broadcaster. He is the host of XM Satellite Radio’s MLB Live – Late Edition which airs for three hours nightly Monday-Friday. Castellano wraps up the events of the day as well as providing insight, interviewing baseball newsmakers and taking calls from listeners. He handled play-by-play duties for the World Baseball Classic and the MLB Futures Games for XM (2006, 2007). Castellano also was XM’s lead reporter for the Barry Bonds watch as the Giants' slugger set MLB’s all-time home run record (2007).

Castellano has been passionate about baseball since attending his first game as a 7-year-old at Shea Stadium. His family moved from New Jersey to Northern California during Castellano’s teen years. His broadcasting career began with his high school basketball team. Castellano went to USC, where he did play-by-play for the Trojans' baseball, basketball and football teams and graduated with a Broadcast Journalism degree (1984). He also played semi-pro baseball in San Jose during his college years.

Castellano then began a 1,500-game, 12-year quest as a baseball play-by-play broadcaster in such cities as Bend, Oregon; Rancho Cucamonga, California, and Rochester, NY. He spent six years (1997-2002) in Rochester as the voice of the Red Wings, when they were the AAA affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles. During that time, Castellano also handled play-by-play duties for the Siena College Saints men’s basketball team (1998-2002).

This led to Castellano’s play-by-play duties for the College World Series (2003-2006) for the Westwood One Radio Network; college baseball, softball and field hockey for CBS College Sports Network; and both the Triple-A All-Star Game (1998, 2000, and 2001) and the Junior League World Series (2001, 2002) for ESPN.

Castellano has a healthy Olympic resume as well. He provided play-by-play for baseball in Sydney (2000) and for baseball and softball in Athens (2004) for Westwood One. Castellano also had the play-by-play duties for Westwood One broadcasts for speedskating at the Nagano Winter Games (1998).

Castellano has done play-by-play for Fox Sports’ television coverage of NCAA swimming and diving, track and field, gymnastics and wrestling for the Big 12 Championships (2003). His diverse skills have translated over to the Arena Football League doing play-by-play on a fill-in basis for the San Jose SaberCats (2005, 2006, and 2007). Castellano was a sideline reporter for CBS Sports’ NFL coverage (2004) and is the personal statistician for CBS broadcaster Greg Gumbel during the NFL season (2006, 2007). Castellano also filled in doing play-by-play for the Toronto Blue Jays (2004).

Notable events in Castellano’s career include calling the first gold medal victory for Olympic baseball as Team USA defeated Cuba in Sydney (2000). He also had his play-by-play call of the game-winning home run for the first game in Colorado Rockies franchise history (Bend, Oregon, 1992) archived in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Castellano was named top radio personality by the Albany Times Union for his coverage of the Siena Saints and Rochester Sportscaster of the Year (2000) by the Monroe County Old-Timers Sports Association for his “smooth golden voice.”