Don Orsillo Is A National Treasure
First off, congrats to Don Orsillo, what an incredible call that was last night.
In case you missed it, the Padres became the first team in MLB history to hit a grand slam in four straight games. And doing it to the Texas Rangers, after everything said about Tatis Jr’s original grand slam is such poetic justice it’s unreal.
Usually a team will hit a few grand slams during a season, but never four in a row, that is wild. And when it happened again last night, Don Orsillo nailed it perfectly.
If you thought Wednesday was going to be the grand finale… think again!#FriarFaithful pic.twitter.com/ihdnBbaAJL
— Slam Diego Padres (@Padres) August 21, 2020
And what’s even better is that he did not plan this call, it came to him completely natural. And I for one believe him.
😂 #SlamDiego came to me when the ball was in the air. Never imagined this would happen, but so glad it did. #DonDiego. https://t.co/IGBzEr4mAn
— Don Orsillo (@DonOrsillo) August 21, 2020
As a broadcaster myself, I get asked a lot if I pre plan calls. Sometimes you do, like a season milestone like winning the division or a playoff series or if you know a players milestone is coming up.
But for a home run, which is a completely random event, even better yet a grand slam there is no planning for that. Even like say a walk off hit, which I had on the 4th of July last year, and after the fact I belted out “Happy Birthday America!”
.@DextureMcCall27 with the walk off hit tonight on the 4th of July 🇺🇸, it doesn't get much better than this! pic.twitter.com/scOYOmPWMG
— Sioux City Explorers (@SiouxCityXs) July 5, 2019
Zero planning for this. I wasn’t thinking in my head that day, “okay if we win in a walk off tonight I’m going to say this” it just comes off the top of the tongue. Little did I know then, and I’m just learning now this call was like a team rallying cry the rest of the season and every other broadcaster in this league knows me by this now.
But back to Don, he’s way more talented than I am. This is not his first big call. As we all know he was with the Red Sox for how many years and the one I always think of when it comes to Don Orsillo is the Daniel Nava home run in 2013 after the Boston Marathon bombings.
“Boston this is for you” is the perfect call, and then he gets out of the way, lets the moment breath.
But while Orsillo is a great play by play broadcaster, what is forgotten is that he is also a hilarious dude in the booth and knows that you need to have fun over the course of a 162 game season.
Professional baseball can be serious, yes, but it’s also good to relax sometimes and joke around.
You just can’t find friendships like this anywhere except for in baseball.
It’s too bad NESN canned Orsillo, which I still am not sure why. Now this isn’t an Anti-Dave O’Brien piece. O’Brien is also a very good broadcaster and was a master on the radio side for the Red Sox. I’m guessing the NESN producers have stripped his personality on air.
So part of me is glad to see Orsillo shining so brightly in San Diego. He certainly deserves it. And I am sure San Diego is a much more forgiving market than Boston can be and allows him to be just be him.
There aren’t too many people in the world right now that have as much fun as Don Orsillo does calling baseball games. The man has never worked a single day in his life.
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Connor Ryan (@connoryan68/@PodVerbalCommit)