What’s it like to work with Joe Castiglione? We asked six of his broadcast partners.

We were together 14 years, and we were both low-maintenance people, so it was a good match. We got to call the 2004 World Series together, which is the one you dream about. One of my funniest memories happened when we were in Baltimore. The exact year escapes me, but I remember it like it was last month. Invariably, Joe would be on the phone before the game, calling family and friends, and he was in this swivel chair with a phone that had a long cord. So I guess that tells you it was a while ago. He tied himself in knots spinning around in that chair and lost in conversation, and I watched the whole thing unfold. I still smile thinking about that.

Joe’s never met anyone in baseball he didn’t like, and who didn’t like him. I know everybody says that, but it’s true. He’s the Will Rogers of baseball. He is precisely what you think he is when you listen to him. When you’re a fan, and maybe you’ve grown up listening to him, and you have this expectation of what he would be like if you met him. Well, when you run into him outside of Fenway after a game, he will be exactly what you thought he was — kind, warm, friendly. He is exactly that man.

One of the many things I love about him is that you can tell when the team is struggling just by his tone of voice. “Swing and a popup …“ You can hear him saying that in your mind, right? And then we’ll be on the broadcast when the team is struggling. You know, bases loaded, nobody out, and then there’s a pop fly, a strikeout, and a ground out, and Joe will finish the inning, “Ground ball to short, Red Sox strand three,” and then the headsets come off, and he’ll go off a little bit. “We can’t buy a run and we just can’t hit, what the heck is going on here, Lou?” and it’s just because he cares so much. I love those times with him, when you get those reminders of how much the Red Sox mean to him.

When you work with Joe, you get to know his whole family. I can’t imagine how proud they are. You work in baseball, it’s a huge sacrifice of time, and Joe has always made sure that they are part of his life at the ballpark. I remember sometimes, shoot, we’d be up there and one of his granddaughters would be sitting between us in the booth, eating popcorn and ice cream and have this whole setup. What a great thing for a kid from New England to be able to do, right? Spending quality time with your grandfather while he’s calling a ballgame at Fenway Park. They’re getting memories of a lifetime.

I got choked up when I heard that Joe was this year’s honoree, because he’s such a nice man and it’s a classic case of a great thing happening to a great person. I don’t think there’s anyone who loves all that goes into being a baseball broadcaster more than Joe. He loves the game, and he loves the people in the game, and he loves being the voice of the Red Sox. I’m always touched when former players come by the booth — David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez, Jon Lester, a bunch of them, many more than that — because you can tell by the way they greet him that they have genuine affection for him and really enjoy his friendship.

Within one hour of finding out that I was going to do my first game with him, he sought out my phone number and left me a voice message while I was doing a different game that essentially said, “I will make you comfortable. This will be easy and natural for you.” And within five minutes he had proven to me how he did that. I’ve learned that one of the underrated things about Joe is how wonderful he is at detailing the eccentricities that happen only at Fenway. He always says where a ball hits on the Monster — if he says “just above the National League scores,” you see that, right? — or precisely where a ball lands after it curves around the Pesky Pole. He meets those only-Fenway moments with amazing precision. It reminds you that it is his home ballpark in every way.

Chad Finn can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @GlobeChadFinn.