Charlie Jones passed away in his beloved La Jolla 10 years ago last month. Charlie was a great guy, my friend, and damn good at what he did. Worked hard at what he did. Even had a law degree. Never traveled light.

During his decades of sports broadcasting, he covered everything from Olympics and the first Super Bowl to every game imaginable (the NFL and Wide World of Sports were longtime gigs), logging more air miles than Chuck Yeager.

When I asked Charlie which was the hardest sport to call, he answered without hesitation in that voice from Elysium: “Baseball. The fastest games are the easiest. With baseball, you have a lot of time to fill. You have to be creative.”

Exactly. And perhaps even more so on television, a medium in which your audience can see what’s going on. It’s hard — be it TV or radio — and people who complain about the voices, or mistakes made here and there, never have had to do it — like pain-in-the-butt Twitter grammarians attacking professional writers. Nor can they.


Vin Scully wasn’t perfect, and nobody who ever put their mouth behind a mic was closer to it. All the years I listened to Vinny, I never heard an “uh.” Mind and tongue in perfect sync.

He entertained more with his brilliance, not necessarily Rodney Dangerfield one-liners, although he had his moments.

In any event, I bring all this up because of our U-T sports poll question of the week: “Are you OK with Padres announcers Mark Grant and Don Orsillo trying to have fun and keeping things light in the broadcast booth?”

In other words: Are you sure you want to be entertained while the Padres are stinking it out, or would you rather the broadcasters be dour as the team batting average, plate coverage and strikeout rate?


Now, I’ve never been big on polls, but here are the final results of this (highly unscientific) one: Of the 1,318 online votes, 85 percent were in favor of Grant and Orsillo enjoying themselves and entertaining, 15 percent either not in favor or wanting them to tone it down from, say, the Marx Brothers to Fox and Friends. Of the 602 phone-in votes, only 53 percent voted for hilarity, but I guess if you used a phone to vote you’re not a fan of Stephen Colbert.

I’m glad I’m not just speaking for myself (for once), but I love these guys. I have known Mud Grant many years (since his days of giving hot-foots in the dugout), Don Orsillo not very long (or well, except we have the same taste in Italian food), but his reputation as a Red Sox Nation favorite before coming here in 2017 obviously was well-deserved.

I now watch more baseball on TV than at any time in my life. I watch more Padres games — or suffer through more — than I ever have, and I find this pair witty, entertaining and knowledgeable.

I was up in Big Bear earlier in the week and got the Dodgers-Padres’ Los Angeles TV feed. I don’t know who the announcers were and don’t really care. They called the games and knew what they were talking about. They also were boring. I never even chuckled, and this is from the entertainment capital.


“Part of me says I don’t want to comment on it, because it’s ludicrous,” says Grant, who’s other parts nevertheless cooperated. “It seems when the team isn’t playing up to standards, some people take it out on the announcers. In 1998, we were the best announcers in baseball.

“We’re not going to be liked by everybody. But I am who I am. I have to be true to myself and I can’t be concerned about people who don’t like my style. But baseball is a game, not reality. Reality is getting a call from the doctor and saying your kid has leukemia. Reality is having five friends lose their homes in the (Alpine) fire. Baseball gets us away from reality.

“It is not brain surgery, not life or death. We inform people. We never miss a pitch or a play and we tell good stories. I prepare for games.”

And this from Orsillo, who immediately mixed well with Grant:


“This is the same philosophy I’ve worked under the past 18 seasons. The game is fun. Baseball is fun. We’re being ourselves. Should we be different during games?

“I’ve found somebody in Grant who feels the same way I do. We’re friends off the field and at the park, and I think that comes across. I don’t think it takes anything away from games.”

It absolutely does not. It’s what I always say to people who don’t like what I write. Free country (for now). Don’t read me. If you don’t like Mud and Don, turn down the sound.

I have no problem with yuks from “Grant and Orsillo’s Laugh-In.” They’re fun. I still learn things. What’s not to like? Ease up folks. It’s baseball, not a mushroom cloud. Turn away from the flash.


(They could lose the coats and ties, though. It’s a marriage, not a wedding.)

Until marketing geniuses Larry Lucchino and Charles Steinberg dared to saturate the market with Padres games on TV, the team wasn’t on the tube very often, so most of this is about 20 years old. But I get as much or more enjoyment out of these two than any pair that has called their TV games.

Again, I quote King Kaiser from “My Favorite Year.” “It’s funny. And you don’t cut funny.”

sezme.godfather@gmail.com; Twitter: @sdutCanepa


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