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- [00:01]
A
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- [01:02]
B
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A
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B
Now@Vervo.Com our guest is a familiar face and certainly a familiar voice. It is that of Jason Benetti, he of Detroit Tigers baseball, of multiple sports on FO and Westwood One radio. Hello, sir.
- [02:52]
C
How have you been, old friend? How are you?
- [02:55]
B
I'm. I'm good, thank you. I'm. To answer that question, I'm really, really good professionally and personally, I think certainly professionally, I've never been happier doing. Doing this and having the autonomy and the freedom and. And having Matt by. By my side. It's been. It's been great. It really has.
- [03:14]
C
Great. I'm happy to hear that. I'm. I'm good, too. I'm glad to see you. I'm glad to chat for a while.
- [03:19]
B
Yeah, it's nice. I'm always thinking about you because you tend to pop up at these times where it's like, oh, it's Jason Bonetti. Whether I'm flipping the TV through channels or turning on the radio or somewhere walking down a street and you hear a voice coming out of a bar or something. And I know that voice. And I just. I really do wonder, though, do you ever have time to yourself? It just seems you're either doing a game, have to be prepping for a game on the way to one, coming home from one. Do you ever set aside an island of time to not be broadcasting?
- [04:02]
C
I had this hour today, and then I got asked, you're wasting on a podcast. No, I. You know what? It's funny you ask that, because I just finished, like, as we're sitting here talking, I just finished 10 games in 16 days in assorted cities. And it is everything I ever dreamed of and always wanted to do and get to see the United States and travel and all of that. And it is great again, like, great. But last night was my first day off the road in a while, and I remembered I had friends and I called them all and I said, hey, and it only didn't take very long, right? But I called them and, like, I had owed this person to call for a month. And this boy we texted. But I like time on the phone and time with people. Like, quality time is what I let go sometimes. And it was really nice to have that back. But again, the pitfalls of our job is, like, the flight gets delayed. There are many people with harder jobs and all of that. So I'm loathe to ever sound like, oh, woe is me, because it's not that. But I did remember I had friends yesterday.
- [05:19]
B
Well, it's good for you. I Mean, that's just. It's for. For mental health reasons. Like you say, as much as one can enjoy one's job, it is still one's job. And especially if being informed and prepared takes up as much of your. Your conscientious time as it does when you say, look, I. I want to do this, but I could be doing this. I should be preparing for this. There' to know and there's. You always have that feeling. And I'm wondering, what are you outside of prep and sports and job, what are you reading or what is the last thing that you read that was important to you?
- [06:02]
C
So I'm currently reading John Cleese's behind the scenes Fawlty Towers book. Ooh. And it's a little bit of a presentation of an infographic, but the information is really good. It's not a novel, but it's John Cleese at his best of. Like, the first page is some Python drama. Right. Like, the first page, he just jumps right into the people he didn't like of the Pythons. And then it's Fawlty Towers and how it started and how, you know, for the folks who don't know, which is probably everybody watching Fawlty Towers. John Cleese is Basil Fawlty. He runs a hotel. It's a really shoddy hotel. And misfortune befalls him over and over again for 12 episodes. It was 12 episodes. And it was this seminal show in comedy history, at least in the United Kingdom. It is so funny. It is endlessly witty. The writing is ridiculous. And he and Connie Booth, Polly, she plays like the housekeeper for the hotel. They were married for a while. They took six weeks to write each episode. The level of detail in those episodes. But to hear John Cleese tell it about how they developed the idea, how much fun it was to do, how they got the guest stars. It's brilliant and fun. So I gravitate toward entertainment stuff.
- [07:33]
B
Interesting. That's really interesting. And you're not troubled at all by the turn that Cleese has taken in his old age? Probably the most unsurprising rightward turn that anybody could. Could imagine. But I don't know that he was fully canceled, but he had some, like, cranky bastard opinions on some things. I'm not even exactly sure what I'm supposed to be angry about.
- [07:56]
C
No, I. Right, I agree. I've, you know, I see it online, but I also, like. I take period pieces to be period pieces as much as humanly possible, because I. I do think it's a fantastic show. And I, you know, I think people evolve and erode and all of that, but I. I actually tend to watch old things and listen to old things now. It's like comfort food for me in some regard. You're going to laugh at me, but one of the things in the last year that I have had on while I prep, because I don't like quiet while I prep. I like having something on, whether it.
- [08:35]
B
Be, oh, and you don't use like an ambient music of some kind, like the coating people use or, you know.
- [08:41]
C
No, I can't, I can't. I need something that drives. I need like the, the beat of something. But I do watch shows and one of the things that I watch that's comfort food is Murder She Wrote.
- [08:53]
B
Beautiful. Yeah, that's because everyone sort of resolves in the same way. And what it sounds like to me is, I don't know if you read Craig Calcatera's cup of Coffee newsletter, and.
- [09:06]
C
I don't subscribe, but I get it sent to me and I really like it. He's so smart.
- [09:10]
B
He's the best smart. And you guys are, as lawyers, you guys have so much in common because he is, you know, he was a. He practiced in corporate law for like 15 years. So he looks at everything through that lens. But he is a huge Columbo fan.
- [09:25]
C
Oh, really?
- [09:26]
B
And he, he makes me want to go back and watch these Columbo episodes because of just what you're talking about, where the writing's really good. It's. It's a high quality piece of television, but you get the comfort of the. The same kind of rhythm. And if you want to play in your head is the whodunit, you can, but you don't have to. And it's like my wife does with Law and Order, where she could go sit and watch. And I sort of have been trapped as the weather has gotten turned and I haven't been fishing as much. And I'm in the house more if there's a Law and Order on. What grabs me is some Oscar winner who has a bit part. Because everybody, huge actors, they're in every iteration of Law and Order. And then, and then I'm hooked. I'm just. It's like, oh, my God, that's for the Sopranos or whoever it might be. And you're sitting down and just watching it. And that's one where it's like, oh, I know. I know how this goes. I know. I can feel it.
- [10:28]
C
They did a Magnum PI Crossover episode where Magnum loses his tiger hat at the crime scene. So do you know the apocryphal. We really think it's true story about Angela Lansbury and guest stars. Have you heard what she. Why she cast these like Golden Age people? So evidently, according to a number of sources, when she passed, Angela Lansbury used to cast golden age stars on. On Murder She Wrote because she wanted to make sure their SAG AFTRA insurance didn't lapse. So for years they didn't work. And like after however many years, if you don't work, you lose your ability to get your insurance.
- [11:12]
B
You know, there was a talk show host. It was either it, it Kimmel. It was either Kimmel or Fallon or, or somebody else was doing that too and was giving people like if they needed one credit short. And it wasn't just for on air. It was also some of the electrical worker unions. For people to work, you know, a given number of those things even for, for their respective unions, it's really one of the coolest things somebody could do. I'm really happy to hear she did that.
- [11:41]
C
Yeah, it's so neat. I mean, because it's, you know, there's such rigid rules, right? It's like I submitted an expense report a week and a half ago that had an Internet charge on it of $10 at a hotel plus the hotel. I submitted $10 less because I knew the Internet charge was coming off. And they sent it back to me and said, it's got a match. So I was like, you want me to take an extra $10? Because like, if the rules are going to be that rigid, then people will play the other direction.
- [12:14]
B
I didn't really think about that. I know, I didn't. I didn't really know that that level of farm animal porn was so inexpensive these days. I didn't know if the prices come down.
- [12:27]
C
It's not a question, but it's. But it's a statement that is so unbelievably accurate. We've known each other for way too long. You just assume things that are so specific about me.
- [12:39]
B
When you mentioned the tiger's hat, I know that for a long time that was. And I don't know how the character exactly developed that outside of Selleck himself being the baseball player, terrific baseball player that he was. Does he still have a relationship with the Tigers?
- [12:55]
C
Yeah, so funny you ask. The last year on Magnum PI Day at the ballpark, there's. There's a. There's a small group of tiger fans who have built into a larger group over the Years that have a sort of. It was an unsanctioned first, and now the Tigers have really embraced it. Magnum PI Day, where people show up in Hawaiian shirts and mustaches every year to a Tigers home game. This year is the first time Tom came to celebrate Magnum PI Day. So he came. He did a podcast with us. He did an inning on tv, which was awesome. He was fun. And he mentioned it was like an episode of Murder She Wrote. He mentioned like a bunch of old time actors, including Faye Dunaway. My partner Andy Dirks did not know who Faye Dunaway was by face, but glommed onto it. And the Tigers scored like three runs in the middle of the inning. And Andy, every time they scored, started chanting, faye Dunaway. We made it the Faye Dunaway inning. And then our crew rolled out to break with the COVID of one of Faye Dunaway's movies. The VHS cover.
- [14:04]
B
Was it Bonnie and Clyde? Was it network?
- [14:06]
C
Yeah, I was expecting network to pop up, but it was like a little bit down the list. They just know. They just googled Faye Dunaway.
- [14:13]
B
Sure.
- [14:13]
C
So it was like, you know, whatever, like, version of Mixed Nuts she was in, you know, like just some, like, movie that was off the beaten path. And they were like, this must be the Seminoles Bay. Dunno.
- [14:23]
B
Gotta be it.
- [14:24]
C
Yeah, that's it.
- [14:26]
B
That's great.
- [14:27]
C
He was fun. He was really fun. We talked about friends and all of that, like being known for friends. Because there's this whole generation of people that know him as Monica's love interest. Right. Three Men and a Baby. Yeah, it was. It was great.
- [14:43]
B
On Mr. Baseball, we got to actually see him swing a bat, which he makes it look good. Looks real.
- [14:51]
C
Yeah, he. I mean, he was a basketball player and he was a baseball player. I mean, he was a great athlete back in the day.
- [14:59]
B
Are the Tigers treating you well?
- [15:01]
C
They're great. They're great. I mean, truly, they have been fantastic, you know, and with all the upheaval of the regional sports network stuff and like, Valley became fanduel became like we. They give us such latitude to do the telecast and they. They really appreciate and love whatever this is. You know what I mean? It's. My sensibility has changed and sort of crystallized over time, I think, you know. Well, you know, a lot of it is working with Bill Walton, honestly. And you and I have talked in a previous iteration about Bill and how much I love Bill and Ms. Bill, and I'll always appreciate the conversation we had after he passed, you know, just about him and thinking about him and all that and I. So Bill Walton, for a play by play announcer who thinks of himself as a creative is a dream because he takes all of the heat off of your wildness and puts it on him, whatever that is, right? Nobody's going to compete in the anarchy department with Bill Walton on the air. But he gives everybody next to him license to say basically anything. And just this, this thought of like, you go be you, because he's going to be me. He's going to be him forever and for always, to the extent that he wants to be whatever that is. Then he'll deal with the phone call that probably will just go to the producer anyway, because nobody's going to say it to Bill. But Bill gave us all this freedom to just go be and say and do. And I promise you, if you watch games, not long after or before, there's this moment where I got to work with Bill Walton, where I think I changed as a play by play announcer in terms of freedom, in terms of digging for things, in terms of just the joy of it all. And so I say that because I think when I first became a major league announcer, even started at espn, right, you try as an announcer to sound like an announcer, to do the things and to do the dance steps that announcers do. If you're a student of announcers, you become this composite of everybody. But you act a little bit like if you make a misstep, you're going to be smote by the gods of announcing. There's going to be somebody that says, like, no, don't do that. If you don't get the name of somebody right away, or if you don't call that foul, it doesn't really matter. It's about the performance as a whole. And once I ran into Bill, I realized that was 100% true. And I think Steve Stone actually had a bunch to do with that as well, because he's an extremely detailed guy. But he also sees it as entertainment. And I ran into a number of people like that who are really, truly infotainers in a big way that think the show is the show. And so I think over the course of time, my taste has started to come out more and more, and there are fewer and fewer barriers to that, some of which were mine and some of which were external, if that makes sense.
- [18:36]
B
It does. And I think that there's. That the audience can be varyingly tolerant of that where there is. And I know that there are certain executives who always believe that you are talking to the hardest core sports fan or on the national level, you don't want to even walk up to the close to the possibility that you might betray some kind of bias toward a team or a player. And therefore it starts to suffocate all opinions about everything. And it's something that I always ask, like when I'm talking to young people about broadcasting in whatever capacity, when you picture a singular viewer or listener, does that change? Obviously local. When you're with your Tiger's family and your regular Tigers viewer, they know you better. They know your idiosyncrasies, they know what you find funny. Nationally, maybe not so much. How do you make sure when you get the image of or the schema of the person to whom you are speaking, how do you calibrate that for a given performance?
- [19:55]
C
It is an extremely timely question because Sarah Custoch and I had the analog of that conversation on a plane over the weekend. We, Sarah is awesome. Sandberg High School, like, phenomenally sunny person. So she was my analyst for this women's basketball doubleheader in Brooklyn. Then we flew together to join Brady Quinn to do Falcons, Cardinals. And so it's like a five hour flight. We randomly were seated next to one another. We had had enough of each other over. Well, she had had enough of me over the course of the day. And then we got to talking on the plane and I turned to her at one point and I said, because she does the Nets too. Right? So she's local with the Nets and.
- [20:35]
B
Then with Iron Eagle. Right. I mean, at all times.
- [20:39]
C
Great.
- [20:39]
B
Yeah.
- [20:40]
C
Yeah. The dad was a. Was a comic like all of this. So in. The timing is brilliant. So I turned to Sarah, I said, you know, if we were doing a Nets or a Tigers game, this whole travel thing would be a heck of a conversation. But tomorrow nobody cares because it's Falcons, Cardinals, and nobody really knows who we are unless they know us from national game. But they're not there for our personality in any way. However. However, if you have, if you have a stimulus that's so open and obvious that you can play with in the. Yes. And sort of sense, you can create an us through the viewer in that moment, but it's gotta be then. And Sarah provided that they had the roof open in Arizona. So she, she dressed in such a way that it was impossible to not say to her, did you play tennis this morning? Like a yellow pop, like tennis skirt. And I said it to her immediately. She laughed. Even one of the coaches on the sideline, she texted us during the break at halftime and said, he came up to me and said, how was tennis this morning? Okay, so it's so open and obvious that it like clearly tennis is the thing. So on my walk up to her first hit, I said, hey, beautiful day. The roof is open. Great day for football or tennis, if you care to. Here's Sara Kusta and something about Roland Garros on the back end of it. She's giggling. Her mic is open. She's giggling as I toss it to her. I hear her laughing at my walk up, but there's a stimulus there that's so open and obvious. And so when, when you have a director who finds something in the stands or whatever and you're doing essentially crowd work, right, then you can become an us for today. But it's almost a little bit like Snapchat where you send it and it's gone, right? And it doesn't really stick with the fan base unless they are the types of people who watch every down, every moment and are the same personality as the people who really wish Damon Lindelof closed every door on Lost. Right? The Easter egg. People get it. If you lay them down for a national game, for a local team, they're so inundated with Easter eggs, it's hard not to play along, right?
- [23:16]
B
There's lore at that point.
- [23:18]
C
There's lore.
- [23:19]
B
It's more than Easter eggs.
- [23:21]
C
It's law. It's, it's, you know, it's. People say there's. Whose quote is it that they say like art ceases to be art when it becomes self referential. So then by week two of a baseball season, we're not art anymore, Right? We're done.
- [23:36]
B
But I don't think that that's a timely. I don't think that quote really applies anymore, especially in a post, post modern art world. I think that I would not accept the validity necessarily any more of that statement. And I think there are plenty of examples of certainly of that Andy Warhol is an art because everything he did was the essence of self reference.
- [24:04]
C
No, that's right. I, yeah, I don't think that. I don't. It is funny. Like it is difficult to tell what applies anymore. You know, like in a lot of ways it is really difficult to tell. Not even just to personalities and you know, morality and all of that. Like I, I think we do have natural law still, right? Like, I think there is natural law of just like, this feels wrong, this feels right for a good chunk of society. And I do think that will. When you start thinking that doesn't exist anymore, you then kind of throw the world away. And I don't think that's the case. But I think sometimes with our extraordinarily onlineness, the natural law doesn't really apply to online. So then there's the fraying of like capital J justice, because it's a game.
- [25:07]
B
We could be here all day. If I, if I take this exit and we go down this particular highway, we're going to be here all day, which I would love to do at some point. But let me, let me turn this then as long as we're talking about larger scale and national broadcasting, something I've noticed and I'm trying to figure out why this is. And there are, there are, there are surface reasons and there may be deeper reasons for it. And I noticed this recently where I'm having a more difficult time distinguishing some play by play voices from one another. And there's been a homogenization of the sound of sports, play by play, not so much analysis or reporting. But we are in the peak era at the moment of, for lack of a better term, and this is not used pejoratively, the Syracuse baritone. And whether it is, whether it's actually somebody who went to Syracuse or not, but between, whether it was, it was sort of. It began, I remember, with the way Dave o' Brien sounded into the way Dan Shulman sounds. And there these voice, these baritone, clean but deep voices that even at the, when, when, when it rises, when things get more exciting, that there is also a similar quality in the, in the ramp up of that. When I watch Bulls games now I have to really figure out, okay, it's not Adam Amin, Is it Wayne Randazzo? Is it Connor Onion? You know, and Wayne Randazzo sounds like, you know, Sean McDonough. And there is just, there is a homogenization of this. Is this the ESPN effect of what is or at least residual effect of the people in charge at espn? Is the Syracuse teaching or the method, the mechanism through which people move through the Newhouse School? Is this part of it? Because I kind of miss hearing a signature play by play voice.
- [27:28]
C
Yeah, you know what? That is a question I could spend an hour on because it is fascinating. First of all, I mean, I got some of that when I first was with the White Sox. Like, ah, just another guy. Right? And I don't blame people for, like, your, your ear tells you what it tells you. Like I tell people all the time. I cannot fake my reaction to a tape that somebody sends me. Like, if I love it, I love it. And I like have to Tell them right away. And if I don't love it, like, I'm like, ah, why? You know, but there's something missing, right? There's just something that's not there. And I, you know, I think. I think it's in part in the incentive structure, right? I think people see like, hey, this has worked, so why not? There's a reason I do, you know the Sean McDonough impression. Delighted to be with you. Like, because I love the sound and I love the uniqueness of the sound. I like unique sounds in general. And so, like, for a while, I was just doing a cheap McDonough impression on the air. I might have said this to you, like some tape I sent you, Brandon. Trish hit a three for Syracuse. And I was like, trish, four, three. And then I thought, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can't do that on the air, you clown. So I do think, I do think it's the same thing I said about taste, about developing taste, is that you think you're going to get smoked by the broadcasting gods if you sound different, right? But I do think then you holster whatever makes you you as a sonic being. I think a lot of times how this happens is people get taught what to say, not how to say it at the outset. So the Syracuse method, in a lot of ways is about just really rote learning about how to use present tense in a sports cast, how to make sure that you have an action verb on the three. Like all of that, right? And then it's never really prioritizing performance, which, you know, you. You churn out a lot of scrupulous, dedicated information gatherers. But in the end, what do you sound like does matter. I have thought for a couple years after watching a lot of clips from the Voice, that in a lot of ways, play by play announcers are cover bands. Because we know all of the lyrics, right? It's third and eight. Here's a tackle by Jones. He got clobbered by Roquan Smith, whoever it is, right? We know the lyrics. The lyrics are the words. They are repetitious in play by play, but the value we provide, the thing that makes somebody hit the button is how we sound. You go on the voice, you do like, Viva la vida. And it sounds too much like the original. Nobody's turning around. So this is very close to my heart because I do think the way we teach play by play announcers and the incentive structure is to try to find the least objectional, least objectionable play by play announcer. Because quite often I think, you know, TV is like, hey, get the promos in, right? Make sure you nail it.
- [30:56]
B
Don't be the limiting factor, right? If anything else, just, just disappear in the broadcast and don't be a reason for tune out. No one's tuning in for you. Just don't be a tune out.
- [31:07]
C
Right? You know, coming up through the ranks, a lot of the things you'd hear is let it breathe. Like let the big moment breathe, which is good advice in a big moment. But it sort of sounds like don't talk. But there was a story when Grantland existed back in the day. It was from like 10, 12 years ago. There's a neuroscientist who is at UCLA who did research into our motor neurons, so things we use in our brain as we do athletic activities. And he realized that when you watch games, if somebody's talking during the most athletic feats, your motor neurons fire less. And so if you lay out as a play by play announcer at the best extension of the arm, the juggling catch, the shorter you are, the more it probably fires the brain of the person in the audience. Now, I am the last one who would advocate for more research into making play by play announcers more rote. However, I do think there's an entire industry of people absolutely guessing at what we should sound like. We have no idea if we're landing the plane for a story and we just think we're doing it well.
- [32:28]
B
Part of the issue too is how quickly and acceleratedly regional sounds, accents are disappearing. That you used to be able to turn on an NFL game and have somebody with a slight Southern accent or someone with a slight eastern accent. Even, you know, the early days of espn, people sounded different because of from where they came. I had a conversation with Tim Brando about this, who is. He's from Louisiana and he's. He talked about how hard he worked to not have. He had to get the south out of the mouth and he's talked about it. But there was a sense sometimes where you would. Back when we thought the SEC was actually southeastern and it would sound southeastern and there were. You knew which conference you were watching, you knew which air because or when Vern Lundqvist came up with the Cowboys and you heard that. It's why I love listening to the Sirius XM radio broadcasts of NFL games. I love it because people sound like the team and where they're from. And the people that select for network are less of that now. Even if they're incredibly skilled, they don't sound networky in the same way. And I guess maybe that's just me being nostalgic. But it makes it more human. And it makes. To me, it makes my ear listen a little bit better if there are somebody, you know, say what you want about, about Hawk Harrelson, but there was a. Just, you know, those, those unique voices and unique sounds in play by play are completely disappearing. Well, look, we're all going to be replaced by AI Anyway.
- [34:12]
C
Correct.
- [34:13]
B
So, you know, it's. That's really. I guess I'm appreciating any human sound when I hear it. But everything has been smoothed out.
- [34:20]
C
It's, you know, it's the chain restaurantization of play by play in a lot of ways. Like, people who are in charge want quality control in every way. And so you drive right down the middle. And I don't blame anybody because the incentive structure is whatever it is, but I do think we are all better off when there's texture and detail in the sound. Now, I have Veronica Corningstone, non regional dialect. But I can also, like, hey, how you doing? Like, Chicago, Like, I can do it. Yeah, but you, like, do you really want me to talk about going to the jewels? Like, I don't think, Like, I don't know. Right. And so I try to bring that in what we do in. Not even in the way I call the game, but in, like, the interstitial traffic in between. Like in baseball, if I don't do some voice, like the SportsCenter voiceover guy makes an appearance once every three Tigers games for the billboards. Because I'll just go like, tigers baseball brought to you by Applebee's. Just because it's, like, it's something different. But I also, I do voices of other people. Which then leads to. Sometimes I wonder, like, which is me? Like, which one is actually me? All of them.
- [35:48]
B
That's an easy answer. You contain multitudes in that regard. But that's every broadcaster. You know, we all get the advice. Emulate the best. Emulate the best. And it's why I. I spent years in minor league baseball, either sitting next to a Vin Scully impersonator or a Harry Carey impersonator. You know, that was. That was pretty much it. And you knew if you had one of these guys and you still get some of that out there. But you with. For young, you know, in the low minors, people are trying to figure out how they sound, and it's okay because that's where you do it.
- [36:26]
C
Yeah. But I think. I think sometimes people never get told, sound like you. Right. And, like, Work at it.
- [36:34]
B
You know who told me that?
- [36:35]
C
Who's that?
- [36:36]
B
Vin Scully.
- [36:37]
C
Did he really?
- [36:38]
B
Yeah.
- [36:39]
C
Wow. Yeah, he.
- [36:40]
B
He. He was the one. This was my senior year of college. We were driving down to Key west, and we stopped in Vero beach in Dodgertown, and we were there super early. They were. And it was. It just. That's back. You know, there's no fences, there's no walls. Everybody's just milling around. And Vin was down on the field, and I talked my way down to the field and had a lovely conversation with him and told him that I was a college broadcaster and thinking about getting into it, and. And he's like, the most important thing is you sound like. You don't impersonate anyone. Just trust your own sound. And it's. To hear it from him was like, oh, my God.
- [37:22]
C
Yeah. You go back and you're like, I better sound like me. I better stop. I don't know how.
- [37:29]
B
I'm not sure I know how to do that. It was scary.
- [37:32]
C
It absolutely is. It absolutely is. And I, like, that is the fun part for me to go back and listen to, like, you know, Kevin Brown of the Orioles and I did four years together in the minors. You go back and listen to the tape, and we both have reason to say, why in the world did anybody believe in this? But when I hear exploration in a tape, that's when I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Like, there's. There's something there. They're doing something different rather than like, oh, if I just keep doing the same thing, somebody will notice and stamp and approve this. It's. But it's a really, really difficult thing that there's no real workbook for.
- [38:16]
B
There.
- [38:16]
C
There are all these guidebooks for improv, for actors, you know, like, method acting, all of these things for how to make it big in Nashville, all of that. We are, like, play by play announcers, in a lot of ways, are the performers who weren't good enough to be the lead in anything else. Like, you can't put me as Harold Hill because nobody's buying musical instruments from the guy that limps around to say, they'd be like, come on, man, you're a con man. We're on to you. Yeah, wait a minute. We know you did this in Shelbyville. Like, you can't. We can't do that. We're not. We're not doing that. Or like, you know, you're not good enough to play the sport or whatever. But then we get into this performance industry, and it's It's a lot more like acting or music than anybody, I think, thinks it is. At the outset.
- [39:14]
B
You. You don't know that you hit a nerve with your Harold Hill reference because, oh, really? I lost out on that part to Tommy Gottlieb.
- [39:24]
C
Hey, I was right.
- [39:25]
B
And I ended up playing Mayor Shin. I got the part of Mayor Shin when I was. All I wanted was Harold Hill and didn't get it.
- [39:42]
C
Come on, man.
- [39:43]
B
It is absolutely true. And look, you've cast me as an actor before because. And I was mine mindful of this and actually quite sad about it, because when Rob Reiner was. Was murdered and I got the news and I'm still processing it, and I'm still amazed at the number of moments, of references, of jokes, of things that somehow connect to a certain degree of Rob Reiner. And it is the. The more you think about it, it's when it's presented to you like that and you're conscious of it. And then I was thinking back to what you did during COVID when you had various people act out famous scenes. And I had a blast doing Wallace Shawn as Vicini from the Princess Bride. I absolutely loved that.
- [40:34]
C
You were brilliant. Like, it was. Like it was. You know, whoever didn't cast you as Harold Hill, had they heard you as Wallace Shaw, they would have given you the part, and you would have had fewer than 77 trombones and more than 75. It would have been fantastic. You were unbelievably good. You were the. You were the star of hashtag sportscaster scenes. Other than when Ken Levine got actual. George went before he passed to do the table read of cheers with, like, 10 other baseball announcers. So Ken saw series including yours, and loved yours, by the way. And then Ken saw this. Ken Levine, who wrote for Cheers with David Isaacs, his writing partner, also was a baseball announcer for the Mariners and for the Orioles and for Triple A syratese. So I got to know him. Then he said, well, what if I got a Cheer script? And we did an entire table read with baseball announcers, and I called George to do Norm. So we did two episodes of Cheers that's full and complete with actual George went. And like, Chip Carey was Sam Malone, Susan Waldman was Carla. Like, it was awesome. It was exceptionally fun.
- [41:54]
B
Where is this? Where does this live?
- [41:56]
C
It's on YouTube still. Hashtag sportscaster scenes. And then here's table read. Dave Fleming was an outstanding Cliff Clavin. It was really fun.
- [42:08]
B
That's fantastic. Before we wrap this up, just a couple actual Sports questions or observations from you of recent vintage, Maybe say, like in the last year or two. You can name the sport, name the player who has done anything spectacular enough for you to have to catch your breath before describing it or to actually make you think, how do I describe what I just saw?
- [42:40]
C
Oh, so Tarek Skubal. Tarek Skuble is definitely on that list. He has the Jordan ambition and the last dance sort of insatiable need for being better than the other person. He threw a psychopath. I mean, no, he's the best. He's the best kind of psychopath. He's nuts. So my favorite moment in sports in the last year that I've gotten to call Skubal was it was a Sunday morning game. He threw a Maddox against Cleveland. And I wife swapped with Dan Dickerson on radio to tv because Dan was doing the Roku game on Sunday morning. I'm not able to with my Fox affiliation. Dan did the tv, I did radio. And on radio you get to describe more. And it's exceptionally fun when interesting things happen. Skubal gets a ground out to third and shatters a bat in the middle of this brilliant performance that he throws nearly 103 on the final pitch of. As he walks off the mound after the ground out, he walks by home plate, realizes that there are shards of baseball bat in front of the plate, picks them up, hands them to the bat boy, and continues forth into the dugout. It is the height of badassery.
- [43:59]
B
That's cold.
- [44:01]
C
It is. So I asked him about it the next day. I was like, hey, what? Like, that's just like really, really next level competitive. He goes, I honestly, truly can tell you. And I believe him. Like, he is one of those guys that would tell me if he was like, yeah, how about that episode? You. Right. He said, I honestly, truly just saw them and was like, I should pick these up. And then I realized afterward what that might have looked like. And I was like, oh, he's the nice guy who. Then he drinks a potion and it only works on the mound and then comes off the mound and is like, oh, I'm so sorry I broke your vase.
- [44:40]
B
It was just littering. Yeah, it was just. It's like minimal impact camping. Like you're leaving a campsite and. And making sure the fire pit is in order. Yeah, right, right.
- [44:51]
C
Oh, a couple of charts came over here. We got it. Like, make sure you don't leave anything. Yeah, so. So he's a number one on that list. I just, I think he's phenomenally talented. I love watching him.
- [45:03]
B
Who's the best college basketball player you've seen this year?
- [45:06]
C
Oh, best singular player I've seen this year, I would say in terms of performance in front of us, difficulty to guard, one of two. We've seen Michigan just be such a truck. Yaxel Lindeborg is on the list.
- [45:25]
B
Okay.
- [45:25]
C
But the guy who I was most impressed with, a singular trait is co opied from Arizona. Watch him go into a back end from the elbow turn and then spring into an elbow jumper. The ease at which he gets, the air he gets as such a sturdily built young man. It was shocking live to see him get that kind of bounce in an instant with that frame. It's one of those things that until the. Until we were like at halftime, I didn't exactly know why. It was breathtaking, but it was breathtaking.
- [46:04]
B
Last thing, real quick. Are we going to have a work stoppage after this baseball season?
- [46:10]
C
Oh, I sincerely hope not. I mean, they have done such a good job rehabilitating the game with the rule changes. Like, you know, we could discuss over and over again the ways baseball has shot itself in the foot in the past, but I really believe these rule changes were a phenomenal decision, not only for just the young audience with the short attention span, but I, like, I don't know about you, I think it's more enjoyable, too, in our generation as well. Like, I think. I think they nailed it. And so I really, really hope not. I really hope not. Because it. The numbers are growing, the ratings are growing. Once they figure out the stadium situations in Tampa and the whole thing with the athletics, I really do feel like baseball has a surge in it. And I just hope that they don't give that back, because I can feel it around ballparks and, like, the amount of Tiger fans, anecdotally that come up to me, I, you know, I really hope not. I really hope not.
- [47:12]
B
Jason, this was a blast, and I'm happy to catch up. You look good. You look healthy. You look like you're taking good care of yourself. You're eating well, you're getting enough sleep. So, you know, I just want to make sure. I don't want to be your mother, but I just want to make sure that you're not, you know, working yourself to the bone. Because it always seems that there's. There's. There's two of you.
- [47:30]
C
Well, you know how two things. Number one, I learned to be a dedicated employee by the amount of times I didn't come to my internship with you. Like, there was always like a train thing that went wrong or like, I had to go work at this camp. I was a terrible intern. I would also say this. You know, you have found happiness, and I can tell, and I'm thrilled for that. But the thing that I have to say before I go is the people in this world who were dedicated to my career before anybody cared, I can count on a hand or two. But the people that stuck their neck out to. To make sure people knew that I had talent based on minor league baseball tape that I sent. Every once in a while, I hear people say whatever they think about you as a person publicly because of whatever public things in your career as a media member. I have the same thing now. Like, you are one of the most phenomenally kind, loyal, caring people I know. No, no, no, no, no. Stop. Like, stop. I really appreciate you as a human being. And I just, like, I need to say that because I know your heart and there are not many people who did what. What you did for my career in the world. And so I will always appreciate you for that. And I'm really glad you found happiness and I'm really glad Matt Abaticola is in that waiting room.
- [49:12]
B
Yeah, no, it's. It's. Thank you. Thank you. I'm not that. Thank you. That's all.
- [49:18]
C
You're not good at compliments and neither am I. But like, we've known each other for a long time, time now. And I appreciate you. And that's all.
- [49:25]
B
I appreciate you as well. Have a happy, healthy holiday season and happy healthy new Year. I know we'll speak again soon, but thanks for doing this.
- [49:35]
C
Thanks, Dan.
- [49:37]
B
That is Jason Benetti, our guest on Dan Bernstein Unfiltered. December does not have to be the most expensive month of the year if you're betting with my bookie. 12 Days of Christmas is here. Daily offers dropping back to back across sports and casino. That's profit boosts free spins bet and gets surprise drops for social users, for telegram users. And this is one of the busiest sports times with all kinds of chances. That means high variance too, especially some of these bowl games. Nobody else is watching. You can swoop in there, find a line that doesn't look right. NFL bull season, hoops. These are all chances for you to cash in. So go to my bookie right now. The code dbu Dan Bernstein unfiltered and then your first bet is covered up to $500. If you go big and you miss on the first bet, you didn't really miss because you got a bet back bonus token and you can run it back. So bet on anything, anywhere, anytime. Only with my bookie. And this has been Dan Bernstein unfiltered on 312Sports brought to you in partnership with my bookie Dan Bernstein. Unfiltered unfiltered on 312 sports.
- [50:43]
A
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