The Press Box - Announcer Don Orsillo on Baseball With a Pitch Clock, the Padres’ Golden Age, and His Years with the Red Sox

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

Bryan is joined by Padres announcer Don Orsillo to discuss the adjustment both broadcasters and players are experiencing due to the recent rule change introducing a pitch clock (1:41). Then, they reflect on Orsillo’s start as a broadcaster and his blueprint to the Major Leagues, starting with the Red Sox and eventually transitioning to the Padres after 20 years (10:11). Plus, a conversation about Orsillo’s favorite hobbies: cooking and fishing. Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Don Orsillo Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everyone, it's Ariel Hawani, and I wanted to let you know that each and every week, I'm part of a great program called The Ringer MMA Show. I hosted alongside two absolutely brilliant minds. Their names, Chuck Mindenhall and Pizzie Carroll. And every Thursday, a new episode drops where we preview the weekend in mixed martial arts and react to all the biggest news. Plus, after every UFC pay-per-view, we give you a post-fight show. So this is what you have to do.

Just follow the Ringer MMA show on your Spotify app. So you don't miss an episode. We'll talk to you then. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox's final edition. Brian Curtis of the Ringer here, along with producer Erica Servantes, the World Baseball Classic wrapped up this week. And it was like a manager tugging on his ear to give us a sign that baseball season has officially begun.

As you might have heard, Major League Baseball has a new pitch clock this season. And I wanted to know how that's going to affect announcers. So I called up one of the best. Don Orsillo, who was in his eight season calling Padres games down in San Diego. He also called Red Sox games for 15 seasons before that. Orsillo and I talked about how faster baseball will change the jobs he and his analysts have. We talked about how Orsillow broke into the bigs in Boston, about how he left that job, and about how an announcer wins over a fan base in a new city that might hardly know him.

All right, I'm getting there. Here's Don Orsillo. All right, Don, during spring training, you've been test driving baseball's new rules, including the one that says pitchers have 15 seconds to deliver the ball when nobody's on base and 20 seconds when there are runners on base. How is that affected the way you call a game? It's different, you know, and I'm wondering, is it spring training different or is it going to be the same during the regular season?

And I'm really excited to see how that works. But let me start this by saying, I love all of the rule changes. I am a big rule change fan. I was a couple years ago when they did the COVID rules, the seven inning doubleheaders, the ghost runner that still exists. I love that. I never thought I would. I considered myself a few years ago to be a baseball purist and wasn't all that excited about rule changes or doing anything that would change.

the game, I'm 100% the other way now. After seeing all these changes work, and especially the clock, a couple of years ago, I was doing the postseason for TBS, a NLDS between the Braves and the Brewers. And on my flight from Milwaukee to Atlanta in the middle of that series, I was seated next to Morgan's sword from Major League Baseball. And I'd never met Morgan before. He told me who he was, and he had actually recognized me. And he said, listen, we got all these rules who were talking about changing in two years. And I said, really?

Like what? And he said, well, I'll show you the presentation that I'm currently showing owners right now is this clock idea. It's shaving 25 minutes off minor league games, and we think it will lead to more action going on in our game at the Major League loan. He showed me the video and I was on board 100% from the get-go because as a broadcaster,

as a play-by-play announcer in Major League Baseball, it has become more challenging, more difficult to fill the time where nothing is going on. I was sort of amazed by how much time there was where there's nothing going on and you're really challenged as to what you're going to and not be obvious. So anything that produces action for me to call from a play-by-play standpoint at a faster rate or at a better rhythm, I'm on board. Because we were headed so far in the wrong direction. The Padres the last few years were in the 325 range on a regular basis. I know the Major League average was a little bit over three hours.

Padres weren't. And the good years I was in Boston, World Series years, they were 325 too. So teams that would work the count, try to get the starting pitcher out of the game, deep counts, those are good teams for the most part. They took forever to win. And it was really hard at times to be doing play by play at that time. So I'm loving the rule changes. Again, I'm interested to see how they play.

in the regular season and how much drip in it will be in spring training. And I'm also keeping an eye on pitchers and hitters, pitchers especially, getting a feel for the clock in the 15 seconds or the 20 seconds and getting to that two, you know, one second mark. You know, in the beginning when this all started,

they were getting enthrone. Like they wanted no part of getting down to the last couple of seconds. I think the Max Scherzer's of the world and some of the other guys they tried a little bit here, tried a little bit there, but I think guys are going to get better at going deeper.

And I think they're going to get used to this clock quicker than most will think. Long answer, I love it. So all that said, if a game is a half hour shorter, does anything drop out of a broadcast that you'll miss? Not for me. As far as play-by-play goes, I don't believe so.

Now, that said, I'm talking about my job. I think the job of my analyst has just gotten much more difficult because he would normally have time to do and summarize and analyze the play. He's got to shorten up. We don't have time. He's got to get to it quickly and find a way to shorten what it was he was going to say because there's going to be another pitch coming. And I think from a production standpoint, it's going to be a real challenger for the producers and the directors who we work with Knightley. their stuff's got to be shorter to the point where you may not be able to

replace something because you don't have time or you have to acknowledge very quickly like now a play happens and our producer has you know he may look at two or three or four looks at one play now he doesn't have time for that he's got to find the best one that that shows us the most and get it up there and get it off as quickly as possible because stuff that I've got to go. So I think it's going to be more of a challenge for the analysts than a TV game, the producers and the directors, than it is for the play-by-play. So the analyst becomes a little like an NFL analyst.

You've got your window, you've got to say it, and then you've got to get out. Absolutely. And I think, you know, as the players get used to this, pitchers and hitters and catchers, I think analysts are going to get used to it too, you know, having to do it quicker. I mean, it's just going to be an adjustment. And I think it's one that they will make as time moves on. You know, it was interesting watching the WBC. They didn't have the rules that we're currently abiding by, you know, I was listening to John Smolton, his normal pace. The regular season starts and John goes back to doing his weekly Fox games on Saturday. He's now

got to wrap that up. And it's going to be adjustment for him. It's going to be adjustment for all the analysts. But I do think for us, spring training has been a real big help because we're also adjusting just like the players are. All right. Two things I might miss from shorter baseball telecast. One is moments of silence.

Baseball has more silence from the announcers compared to other sports. That's fair? The other thing is, and this will particularly apply to you, the long tradition of messing with your color analyst on the air, especially to kill time. You and Mark Grant are very good at that. I think so. And, you know, it's, okay, it's still two and a half hours of live TV or 235 or whatever it's gotten to now.

I believe that even now with the clock, it's going to lend itself on a local broadcast anyway for us to do what it is, we do and and that's have fun and there's lots of other things going on besides what's going on on in the field i will say there will be much less time to do that but i have a hard time believing that our philosophy is going to change much i do think it'll become a lot as i said before easier just because there is more action and um it it really forces the action and even you know we haven't talked at all about the bigger basis uh but i mean just seeing all the running that's going on during spring training in our games, that's happening again, you know? And now, like, things like pitchouts are all of a sudden the thing again. So, I mean, there's just so much more

going on that it's just easier for us to do our jobs, I believe. But I don't think that will ever change. I really don't as far as how we do the game and getting a little bit into our personalities and having fun. That's just sort of the way we do the games. I can't imagine doing it another way, even if we're up against the clock, because we're not. not going to miss anything. We don't have to call every pitch. It's different than radio. You can miss a pitcher too. You can miss it at bat if you need to. I've had that happen in some instances over the years because the fans at home can say it. They don't need you to say it. So that's the beauty of TV play-by-play is we still can do what we do. Let me ask you a little about your career. You were a baseball

player when you were in high school in New Hampshire. When did it occur to you that you might want to be an announcer. At 12 years old, I am told from my parents. I grew up on a dirt road and a farmhouse in Madison, New Hampshire. We had about 12 Red Sox games on TV. The rest of the season was on radio. I was in our kitchen, which had the best reception as far as radio goes. I'm aging myself, of course. But I fell in love with the job that Ken Coleman had at the time in Boston. And, And a couple reasons. First of all, he got to go to every game, which I thought was the coolest thing ever. Second of all, he was everybody's friend.

Until much later on, years later, I didn't know Ken Coleman, but I felt like I did. He was everybody's friend, and he was there all summer. And his voice was very comforting. And I thought this is the coolest job in the world. I knew very early on in my baseball career in high school. I was going nowhere as far as I was going to have to find another way to get to the big leagues. And I thought, well, maybe I could work in the front office thinking that, you know, being a broadcaster is such a long shot. There's 30 jobs.

It's really difficult to get there. But, you know, I guess it was Branch Rikki who said luck is the residue of design. And I kind of took that to heart and said, listen, if I set it up this way and it happens, maybe it's not luck. You know, so the plan was, let's get an internship, which I did. Sox Radio in college and ended up working with Ken Coleman in his final season, sitting by his side as a statistician, which was a dream come true in itself. I didn't need to get there. I had reached Fenway Park as a statistician. But then as far as setting up the blueprint to get there, I knew I wanted to get out of college as soon as possible to start my minor league career. And I did that.

I went from A ball to double A to AAA to AAA and then to the major leagues. Now, I'm glad I'm glad you. I did that because I saw every level the players see. And that's very important because there's so many guys that were studs coming out of a college World Series and A ball that never got out of A ball. And it made me realize how hard it is to even get to the major league. So I've never been a critical guy of players because I know how hard it is just to put a major league uniform on and what the odds are. So yes, again, a very long answer.

But to get there, I set it up to get to the major leagues. And I really knew at 12 how I wanted to get there, what I wanted to do to get there. I consider myself to be one of the luckiest people on the face of the earth to be doing this. Now this will be my 33rd season and my 23rd in the major leagues. It's 2001 when you start calling Red Sox games. What did you find Red Sox fans expected out of a play-by-play announcer? They expected credibility, honesty. What do they expect?

Red Sox fans are different, pretty much anywhere else in Major League Baseball, I believe. Having done Red Sox games for 15 years and Padres games now is my eighth season with the Padres, it's very different. Every Red Sox game is comparable to an NFL Sunday. like you're doing one game a week, but it's that night. I mean, there are people who go to work the next day angry because of something that took place the night before, mad their team on a losing street.

I mean, really, you know, it affects their lives dramatically. So I didn't realize how important those games were to people. You know, it was my dream job when I started there. having grown up in New England, it never crossed my mind that after I got the job that there would be people who didn't like me. You know, I was like that never. I was, Ken Komo was everybody's friend. You know, I show up.

I showed up. I roll in. I was born in Boston. I had Melrose Mass outside of Boston. I went to Northeastern University. I interned for Red Sox radio. You know, I was a lifelong Red Sox fan at the time. So I remember across my mind that people wouldn't like me.

My first game was at Camden Yards in Baltimore, and my first broadcast was a day on Nomo's no-hitter. I was as tight as tight gets. I was nervous just as being, you know, 10 years of radio. And now my first game in the major leagues on television, which I knew nothing about, is going to be a no-hitter. And we got to the bottom of the ninth of Camden Yards and my producer. Well, that's the other thing. Not used to people talking to me while I'm trying to talk, and there's three of them. but the producer said, hey, ESPN is joining us.

Say a little to the country as we go to the bottom line. Joseph McBatter's worse. I wasn't already tight. So I really, I underplayed it. I really didn't get that excited. I was just so nervous about, you know, get the right guy's name who makes the catch. You know, make sure you can know the right number of outs here.

Don't announce a no hitter that really is two outs. So there were a series of things I was worried. about it. And I really took it slowly, low-key. Well, the next morning I woke up, and I went to bed thinking I had, you know, it went really well. I didn't mess any of that up. And I was okay. I said, this is going to be great. You know, no one's had a more historic first game, maybe ever. And I woke up to a call from a producer from an all-sports station in Boston. They said, hey, you're getting absolutely crushed this morning. Want to come on? And I said, no. I said, I'm good. So I had no idea that the whole morning was spent absolutely nobody was talking about a day on Nomo's no header.

They were talking about how bad the guy who did the game the night before was in this first broadcast. And part of that was changed. Nobody likes change. They didn't care that I was from Boston. They didn't care that I grew up in New England or a Red Sox fan. They just knew that boring and terrible. And I needed to go away. And it was like that for a couple of months into my first season.

So that was unexpected. Over most of those 15 years, you called games with Jerry Remy, who died of lung cancer a year and a half ago. For those who didn't grow up in Boston, what kind of announcer was Jerry Remy? Jerry was very much one of them, perhaps the most genuine real person that I know. He and I became very, very good friends, really because you spent more time with your partner than you do, your family, your wife, anybody else. I mean, I don't think people realize for a seven o'clock game, we get there at 2.30 every day. And then when the game's over, you're traveling in a seat next to your partner on the charter for however many hours going to the West Coast, to Seattle, wherever.

So the amount of time you spend, you better like each other because if you don't, it's going to be a horrible existence. And we really did. And Jerry had a series of personal issues over the years that really brought us together, really the stuff that happened off. the field. It was a bigger thing. His health issues, he battled cancer seven times. The seventh one got him. And I really felt like, you know, you beat it six times. I just expected him to beat it again, but it didn't happen. He had a series of family issues off the field. His son Jared, of course, was involved in a pretty historic murder in Boston, which rocked him as if would anyone. And we went through that together, a series of things off the field. So we were very, very close. He single-handedly

got me, I mentioned earlier that I went from radio to TV. I couldn't have done that without Jerry Remming. I didn't know, I didn't understand when he comes in and what his responsibilities are on replays, anything. I didn't know where to sit on the plan on the charter. I didn't know where to be on the bus. I didn't know anything about the major leagues. TV. And I had a great teacher to do all that. You know, I miss him every day. When I left Boston, was very hard on him because he had become very reliant on me. We, when we traveled around the league, you know, literally we rent cars to every city we went. I became the driver. So when that went away, his life changed dramatically as far as the way he did his job in different cities.

But, you know, when I left and went to San Diego, we literally texted. every day. And we go back and forth and back and forth. And even to this day now, you mentioned it's been a year and a half, I still go to text him. And, you know, of course, I realize he's not there. But I know how I feel about whatever it is, I was going to text him because I know I'm not well. The Red Sox decided to hire another announcer in 2015, after which, according to the Boston Globe, there was a petition signed by 20,000 people in support of you and a tweet from Ken Casey of the dropkick Burfys? How do you look back at the way you left Boston now?

You know, at the time I was devastated. And for all the reasons I told you before, I mean, growing up on a farmhouse in New England, wanted to be the voice of the Red Sox, the odds being off the charts, no chance. You get the job, and you're there 15 years, you're there for three World Series, you're there for some historic things that happen.

I think a shillings 3,000, strikeout, three no hitters that I had the chance to call, including my first game. Mani Ramirez is 500th. David Ortiz is 500th. And you feel like you're kind of part of the fabric, you know. You've been there long enough where, you know, and you work really well with your partner that I never saw me going anywhere else, never considered it. I mean, it was never something that crossed my mind. So when they let me know in August of my 15th season that, hey, at the end of the year, we're going a different direction, I was absolutely stunned. That said, it would never have given me the opportunity that I am so grateful for now.

Move 3,000 miles. Padres were very aggressive in coming after me. I had the Padres job before the end of the 2015 season with the Red Sox. I knew where I was going when I did my last game, and I had no idea how great it was going to be. You know, I didn't know anything about San Diego. I sure didn't know anything about the Potraise. And I got there, and I absolutely love the city where I live. Fan base couldn't be any more welcoming.

I can't believe it's my eighth season already. The people I work with, unbelievable, from the pre and post game guys to my partner, to my director and producer. I'm just so happy to be here because it's been an amazing experience and so much fun to now be part of what I don't think is any argument is going to be the greatest period of San Diego Padres history in 54 years of existence. It started last year. It's only going to get better with all these long-term contracts that have been signed. So I'm just so excited and I cannot wait. I have the same sort of feeling I had no three with the Red Sox was that, you know, 86 years they hadn't won, well, this franchise never won.

I would absolutely love to be here for the first SD ring after three in Boston, and I'm just so thankful that I am. What does it feel like for an announcer to change teams? Weird, especially for me, you know, because the five years prior to Boston, I was in Pawtuckett at AAA with the Red So I was 20 years with one organization. And as I said before, when I got to Padres, I didn't know. I knew about Tony Gwen. I knew about Trevor Hoff.

I know they went to the World Series in 98 and didn't win a game. The Yankees swept them. Past that, I really didn't know anything. So I had to educate myself very quickly on Padres history. And I can't believe how many former players, a legend like himself, Trevor Hoffman, who called Tony Gwynn Jr., of course his dad had passed years ago, he was a call. I met those people within like the first 10 minutes of getting the job. And they introduced me to the rest of the organization.

And I started doing the games and then like former players would call guys that I knew through the Red Sox like Bruce First who would pitch for the Padres. I heard from him and meeting all these people and them telling me their stories about the teammates they were around. I got up to speed very quickly on the Padres. I couldn't believe by like the first half of my first season. I was pretty much up to speed on all the. legends and I had met all the guys that came true like the 98 world surge team. I met all those

guys during the course of that year. And the one thing that I really had to help me out a great deal my first year was that I shared my first year with Dick Ember. It was his last year of his eighth season with the Padres. And so we were around each other on the plane and the hotel. You know, when I was doing a game, he was and vice versa. So we didn't get chances to work together. But we traveled together around each other that entire season. And he taught me so much. He was so gracious with his time in educating me. And, you know, as far as changing teams with the fan base, I was really nervous about that because, you know, 15 years with the Red Sox, you know, they, everybody, I felt like they knew me. They knew my personality. People in San Diego,

they don't know who I. They just know that I was in Boston and what am I going to be like in San Diego. Oh, and where's Dick Ember going? We had a Hall of Fame announcer. Who are you again? So I didn't know how that was going to go. And when people couldn't have been nicer, you know, it didn't hurt that the team got better each year I was there. So I, you know, for some fans, we've had so many people now come on the fan base. I don't know a lot of people didn't know I wasn't there before of the people that are now watching us based on our tenants. I finished third major league baseball, I sure, and attendance. And these people weren't around three or four years ago.

I was. So, you know, I'm not new to a lot of these people now, especially since I've been here eight years. If the ideal is to become everybody's friend, as you said earlier, can you do anything to speed that process along? Or do you have to call games for a few seasons and just show up? I am of the opinion. You control that 100%.

There will be critics of mine throughout the years who say, hey, why don't you just do baseball? Why don't you just do balls and strikes? Hey, Vince Scully didn't need any of this stuff, you know? And it's true, he didn't. And I, you know, I've talked to Ben about this early in my career. But it has always been my philosophy. And thank goodness, the two guys that I've worked with locally,

and Jerry Remy and Mark Grant have had the same philosophy, is that a local broadcaster, to me, is a completely different animal than a national broadcaster. And the reason I know this is because I did both. You know, I work for TBS on Tuesday nights. I work for Fox on Saturdays during the regular season and have been 10 postseason series for Turner in, you know, in the postseason in the DS rounds,

including a one game playoff in 07. You know, so I don't do my national games the way I do my local game. I just don't. And I don't think fans really want that. from their local broadcast because here's the deal. The national broadcast is one game a week. The production team spends a week building what they're going to show during the course of that game. And it's very much business life.

It's all about the game. There's no doubt about that. When you're in someone's home every night on for three and a half hours used to be a night for six months, you can annoy people, I think, in a lot of. ways. And there's a term that Joe Stiglione, who was my professor at Northeastern, who actually hired me for my internship with Red Sox Radio, said to me, it was a term called wearability. And local television, you need to be, I didn't know what he meant by it at the time. You can't wear on people. You know, you have to be someone that they look forward to hearing from.

And to me, that said, you know what, they've got to get to know me. They don't know me if I'm calling balls and strikes and I'm showing no personality whatsoever. I'm not showing who I am or what I'm like or what I like to do away from the ballpark. They don't know anything about me. I feel like the reaction that I got, the Red Sox fans you were talking about the petition earlier when I left, was more about them losing a friend than it was them losing their broadcaster. So yeah, I mean, I did the exact same thing. Here were the Padres that I did in Boston. We are to, two guys watching a game along with you at home. We're talking with you.

We're not talking at you. And I think in a national broadcast, you're talking at the audience. You're talking with you, for instance, right now, is the same way I'm going to do the game talking to whoever is sitting at home in their living room. Same way. And that comes across, I believe. So that to me, and I think I proved it with how it's gone in San Diego from me and the fan base here was, hey, here I am. This is what I like to do.

I like to fish. I like to cook and I like to call baseball. And we're going to have fun. They, it just worked. And I'm like, okay, you know what? This formula works. And I've continued to do it. I've never been asked to change it, fortunately.

The ownership and the bosses have never said, hey, we'd rather you just stick to the game. I think they've seen the value in it as well. And the relationship that I've had with each of my partners certainly grown because we get to know each other. I want to know what mud likes to do. I know what mud likes in there. I've only known what Jerry likes to do. So, yeah, I think there is a way that you can speed that up

to answer your question. We got to see during the playoffs last year what it's like when the Padres play the Dodgers. The team your owner is called the Dragon Up the Freeway. Yes. How do you describe that rivalry from the podcast? Padres point of view? It's been very one-sided until last year in the postseason. To give you, for instance, we played 19 games in the division and the Padres won four of those 19 games

during the regular season. So it didn't go so well with our brother to the north. But I will say this, when it mattered, that atmosphere at Peckio Park was something I never knew could be that way in San Diego. I mean, it was as intense and as loud as anything I've ever been around on the East Coast. So I am just so excited that I'm here for this period of Padres baseball and this period of this rivalry because it really is now. You know, I mean, for a number of years, it was the Giants and the Dodgers. And I kind of feel like now that personally going to this season, I feel like the Padres are the better team now. The Dodgers have had some losses. You know, they've lost the turners of Altrea and Justin.

are gone, Bellinger's gone. I mean, there's just so many names that are gone. And the Padres did nothing but at, you know, Alexander Bogart's now. I mean, it's, you know, and it extended all these guys to make sure they're going to be here in Machado, as well as U. Darvish. And so, you know, I think that this rivalry is really now a rivalry. It wasn't for a great many years, but it is now. You mentioned the way it was set up last year. The Padres lost every series they played against the Dodgers in August and September. then the division series starts. The goose lands on the field.

It's like, oh, my gosh. I needed something. That was it, you know, pointing to something to do it. And, you know, I just go to that final game and, you know, being down in the game,

5'3 and coming back, tying it up, going ahead on the Cronomworth. I mean, it was just, so, you know, obviously we don't get to do the postseason, so we don't get to call those games. But Padre's ownership was so great to Mark Grant and I.

We were invited to, their box for all the games, and we watched it, and we were fans, and it was just, it was electric. It was just so much fun to be there and to watch it. The only thing better than to call it, but I've been there, as I said, before, 10 years doing Turner post seasons,

and I know what it's like for those other announcers when I roll in. So it's only fair that I have to do the same thing. Let me ask you about your two hobbies before you go, Don. Cookie. Yeah. You tweet about cooking under the name Donna Tangelo. Yes.

How did you get into cooking? Well, my dad always cooked as a kid, and I find it incredibly relaxing. It's like a hobby. I'm not sure I'm good at it. My family would tell you I've had a great many failures over the year. They've had to eat it. So the stuff that ends up on Twitter is something that's probably been messed up five or six times already in trial testing. So, but I enjoy it.

And if I'm not fishing in the bay in San Diego, then I am cooking. And as far as Donatangelo goes, my grandfather's name. When they came to the United States, they kind of modernized the name from Donatangelo to Donald. And I'm really disappointed by that because I would much rather be Donna Tangel. You would be the coolest name to announce in baseball. It would be awesome. And I don't have that. It's been taken from me.

So I try to keep it on Twitter anyway. You told the Globe that sometimes you play opera while you're cooking. That is very important. It helps the sauce. I believe it helps the sauce. You know, if the sauce can hear the opera in the background while I'm making my family sauce, I just, you know, I remember as a kid in my grandparents' kitchen that opera would be on when they were cooking the sauce.

And to be honest, that that's really where that's really where they're doing. It continues. It brings me right back to my grandparents' kitchen on a Saturday with the sauce cooking to be served, by the way, on Sunday. I mean, this is a couple-day process, which brings me back to kind of being a kid and one of the happiest, warmest places I've ever been. In terms of fishing, you're in Coronado Bay in the morning or afternoon and then calling a game at Petco Park at night? That's right. That's my day, kind of. I like to mix in a walk in the morning on the beach, which I like to do for an hour or so. It gets, you know, it's difficult when you're traveling and you're eating late at night, eating on the charter. And I tend to, you know,

seem to fluctuate weight-wise during the season. And I try to keep a healthy balance there. So I try to work a walk in, you know, in the morning. And then, you know, early afternoon, after lunch, I head out for fishing for an hour or so, come back and shower and then go to the park. But San Diego, as you may know is one of the greatest places on earth to live. I didn't know that. There's so much at your disposal to do. And, of course, being 75 every day and being able to fish in December and January is a neat trick for me. That sounds just awful.

What an awful life that is. Horrible. A lot to be said for quality of life. I can tell you that. Don Orsillo, thanks for coming on the press box. Hey, I really appreciate it. It was great to be here. And very nice to meet you.

That's the press box. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Erica Servantes. Got some really fun stuff coming up here on the press box. Next week, we are going to enter the world of professional wrestling. That's right. Professional wrestling for a podcast about all the creativity, all the writing that goes into that particular profession.

Look out for that one on Wednesday. And on Monday, David Shoemaker and I will return with more lukewarm, about the media. Have a fantastic weekend. See you Monday.