You may hear Don Orsillo broadcasting national baseball games on TBS and FOX during the regular season and some postseason games on TBS in the past, but he arguably has been more recognizable as the TV voice of the Red Sox on NESN from 2001-2015 and now the voice of the San Diego Padres on Bally Sports San Diego.
As he heads into his 23rd season of calling baseball games on local networks, Orsillo was a guest on the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast with Rob Bradford and he said that he has always done local broadcasts differently than national broadcasts since his days at NESN.
“I have a philosophy that I have had since NESN is that a local broadcast is that you are local, you are one of them. When I was in Boston, grew up in New Hampshire, born in Melrose, went to Northeastern…I was one of them there. That was a crucial part for me that when I got to Boston, I was very comfortable, it was home…The local broadcast is different from the national broadcast because the local broadcast is every day.”
When Orsillo first started, he told Bradford that Joe Castiglione gave him two key pieces of advice and one of them was about being wearable for the audience listening at home because they are with you every day for six months out of the year.
“Joe Castiglione said something to me when I first started that really helped me out. He said two things. First of all, I had done 10 years of minor league radio when I got my major league job and I didn’t really know anything about TV. He said put a caption underneath the picture, don’t be captain obvious. It was great advice. Number two is local TV is about wearability. I didn’t really understand the term, but you can annoy people because you are going to annoy people whether you want to or not because you are on all summer in their living rooms for 6 months every day for 3.5, sometimes 4 hours.
“Wearability is not annoying people, but just discussion, conversations, let them get to know you, show some personality. Don’t miss anything, the game is the thing, eyes on the field all the time. We never miss anything in Boston and we aren’t missing anything here…It’s two guys kind of sitting in a bar watching a game together and that’s baseball, it’s fun. That’s local baseball in my point of view and it’s always worked out.”
Orsillo knows that when he and Mark Grant call a Padres game, his audience is not going to be glued to their TV screen or phone or tablet for every pitch, so content has to remain fresh. He has also been impressed that the Padres broadcasts did well in all age demographics a year ago.
“You’ve got to be cognizant of the fact that people are not going to be locked in on everything you say for 3.5 hours…With that in mind, you have to keep things fresh, you have to account for the fact that they’ve not been there for the entire time and you’ve got to bring something else. You’ve got to bring something else besides what’s there. You can not just do balls and strikes and old-school baseball. That time is gone. The success that I’ve had here in San Diego and my partner’s philosophy is exactly the same. It works and I’m a real believer in that.
“I think the thing that really has impressed me is I thought okay there are some older people that are not going to like that. As it turns out, we finished first last year in the older demographic which let’s be honest, baseball for the most part is, but we finished first 15-24, which told me the young fans are there to. Whatever it is, it’s working. It’s my philosophy and I’m not going to change it. No one has asked me to change it and we are having a bunch of fun here.”
