In Toronto, Chuck Swirsky was the big cheese — and a man of the people.
As the voice of the Toronto Raptors, he received 200 to 300 e-mails a day from viewers. And he responded to every one.
One fan sent him a handwritten letter with a request, asking Swirsky to make a special announcement when a Raptors victory was in hand. That way, he would know when it was safe to prepare a late-night snack.
By the way, the viewer wrote, I like salami and cheese.
Days later, Swirsky bellowed: “Get out the salami and cheese, this game is over!”
The phrase quickly became more popular than a chocolate glazed doughnut at Tim Hortons. It was featured in TV commercials and splashed onto T-shirts and posters.
The Raptors sold two-game “Salami and Cheese” ticket packs and handed out 18,000 Swirsky bobbleheads before a game last March.
Torontonians didn’t even need a TV to hear “Chuck the Canuck,” as some began calling him. They could tune into his daily three-hour sports-talk radio show.
“I had a good thing going and could have stayed the rest of my life,” he said.
Then the Bulls called. They were shifting Neil Funk to TV and wanted Swirsky to be their radio play-by-play guy, joining Bill Wennington.
Swirsky would need to take a pay cut, but that was barely a consideration.
Why? Might have something to do with his 13-year stint as sports director at WGN-AM, where he worked on Bears, Cubs and Bulls broadcasts. Or his three years as the Bulls’ public-address announcer in the early 1980s. Or the fact he proposed to his wife, Judy, at home plate at Wrigley Field on a cold, soggy day in March 1990 with mud on his knees.
The lure of Chicago, the prospect of returning to the western suburbs to continue raising his three teenage children, was too great.
“This was really done for family reasons,” he said.
Swirsky will leave his “salami and cheese” call north of the border. But he will bring his maniacal work ethic.
“I get up every morning at 5 and I go to USSportspages.com,” he said. “I read everything regarding the NBA and I answer e-mails on the plane, the tarmac, when we’re taking off or landing, in the hotel room. I’m not really a party guy. When I’m on the road, I work out, watch sports and answer e-mails. I’m kind of boring.”
Don’t believe the 5 a.m. thing. A few days ago he sent me an e-mail with a time-stamp of 4:06 a.m.
“This is a passion,” he said.
Grace-ful rendition
Although the Diamondbacks butter his bread now, Mark Grace never will forget his roots.
Grace knew he would tick off some D-backs fans last Friday when he belted out: “Root, root, root for the Cubbies!” during his rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” at Wrigley Field.
But the D-backs TV analyst was OK with that, even offering viewers his rationale over the air.
“For the people that don’t understand it out in Arizona,” Grace said by telephone, “I politely explained it: ‘This is a tribute, a tribute to a late friend of mine (Harry Caray), an icon and a legend. That’s the way he would want it sung.'”
Grace said he didn’t catch any flack from Arizona players, whom he said “are so young they don’t even know I played [in Chicago].”
As for the Cubs fans who hope to see him come to the booth here one day, Grace replied: “We’ll see.”
‘Sports Guy’
Bill Simmons told Deadspin.com that he’s cutting back on his column-writing for ESPN.com in protest of some ESPN policies: “Certain promises were not kept. It’s as simple as that.”
Last month ESPN torpedoed Simmons’ plans to interview Sen. Barack Obama for his podcast, with a company spokesman saying: “Fans don’t expect political coverage on our air.”
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tgreenstein@tribune.com
