Popular Mass band records tribute song to retiring Red Sox broadcaster | Matt Vautour

As he thought about the end of a 42-year era of greatness, Brian Scully did what Brian Scully does —. He wrote a song.

“Castiglione” isn’t just about retiring Red Sox Hall of Fame broadcaster Joe Castiglione who Scully, the lead singer of Dalton and the Sheriffs, has never met, but has shared hundreds, maybe thousands of car rides with.

It’s about baseball, the Red Sox and how the shared love of both of those things has connected generations of Scullys from Brian’s grandfather, Charlie Scully to his three children.

Red Sox baseball is bark on that family tree and Joe Castiglione has been the narrator of it.

Dalton and the Sheriffs are a Massachusetts band with roots in the Shore Shore suburbs and South Boston bars. Whether they’re country-rock, or Americana-country, or alt-rock country depends on the ear of the beholder. Scully calls them a “rock band that tells country stories” or “what you’d expect a country band from Boston to sound like.”

A spin through their catalog finds plenty of Bay State Easter eggs, including on “Boston” and “Ted’s Last Game,” the latter a tribute to Charlie Scully who was at Ted Williams’ legendary last game at Fenway Park.

“Castiglione” is about driving with the ball game on:… On trips to the old Building 19 discount store in Hingham with his grandfather in an old family truck on the old WRKO. … On trips to and from gigs around the region in the band’s infancy … And now on rides with his three children.

The idea to write a thank-you song about Castiglione first came to Scully on Opening Day ‘24, before Joe Castiglione had announced his intention to retire. But his thought didn’t become a song until last week. Scully recorded it on an acoustic guitar. With more time, there would have been more production value and maybe more instruments. But with Castiglione bidding the airwaves adieu on Sunday, there wasn’t time for something more polished.

And maybe a raw recording is fitting for a song about a man who spent a large chunk of his career calling games on AM radio.

“It’s a demo but I feel like the bones of what I was trying to do are there,” Scully said. “It’s not very well-recorded, but I like the song a lot.”

Thanks to modern technology, a song can go from recording to streaming in short order. By Friday morning Spotify listeners could hear:

“I’m marking time as the innings pass

On and AM radio W-R-K-O

Turn it up, roll the windows down.

Take me home Castiglione.”

“It’s been the soundtrack to my drives,” Scully said. “When you’re in a band, all you do is drive. It was like having a friend with you on those late nights or on your way to gigs.”

At 44, Scully’s fandom runs parallel to Castiglione’s 42 years on the job. Like many New Englanders, Scully remembers life events in proximity to the important games. The song reflects that.

“I tried to pick a time in the verses when I was a kid listening and a time in the middle and then time at the end with my own kids,” he said.

Dalton and the Sheriffs will often wear Red Sox jerseys or hats on stage and see many of their fans looking back at them similarly attired. Both the bands and their fans are Boston sports fans. So when they play Bar Harbor, Maine and Plymouth later this month and two shows in Massachusetts in December, they’ll likely find an appreciation for “Castiglione,” both the man and the song if they play it live.

“I understand that it’s a song that not everyone will connect to, but I think the people who feel that way about the broadcasts and him will appreciate it,” Scully said. “I know I’m one of thousands of people who feel that way, who are grateful to be able to listen to him and have him be the soundtrack to their Red Sox experience. It’s pretty special.”

Follow MassLive sports columnist Matt Vautour on Twitter at @MattVautour424.

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