Poll: Don and Mud

In case you missed it, the website Awful Announcing recently named Fox Sports San Diego’s broadcast team as the #1 such unit in all of baseball. Spearheaded by colorman Mark Grant and play-by-play announcer Don Orsillo, the FSSD team narrowly beat out the San Francisco Giants crew led by Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow.

This honor is based on voting from thousands of Awful Announcing readers, who assigned A-F grades to every broadcast team across the nation. After placing 3rd in the poll with 48% of their votes being of an “A” grade last year, the Mud/Donnie combo raked in “A” votes from 49.6% of respondents this season.

The Giants team and the Mets team both received a higher proportion of “A” votes, but both of those broadcast teams received nearly double as many “F” votes as San Diego’s team.
Still, it’s worth noting that 171 out of 1,135 respondents assessed an “F” rating to FSSD’s crew, which caused me to wonder what the balance of opinion was here in the GLB community.

The Don and Mud broadcast is usually a fun one. While covering a team in its thirteenth consecutive non-playoff season, Orsillo and Grant have come up with a long list of gags to fill airtime. The Italian Bob, “Dongo Squares”, and incessant fat jokes are some of their go-to repartee.

Personally, I love the levity, but this brand of off-the-cuff ribbing isn’t for everyone. Especially when losses begin to pile up with the arrival of each Fall, I have heard some detractors complain that they would prefer a broadcast team that stays a little more, shall we say, somber?

What do you think? Vote your opinion on our A-F poll, with Don and Mud smack attached to each grade.