ATLANTA -- Somehow in the midst of talking about some of the funniest moments they have experienced while working, the Braves' broadcasters managed to tell tales that included mentions of Ozzy Osbourne and most of the main characters from the classic sitcom "Sanford and Son."

Just like you never know what you might see while visiting a ballpark, you definitely don’t know what you might hear from a group of broadcasters, especially those who had the pleasure of working alongside the late, great Skip Caray, who humored his broadcast partners and Braves fans for more than three decades.

There are countless humorous tales involving Caray. One lasting memory of the fun he brought to work on a daily basis is preserved via this audio clip of what he described as “without question the worst open in the history of baseball.”

As Caray prepared his radio audience for a game in Miami on June 28, 1995, he playfully described the setting as the banks of the Miccosukee Canal and then after composing himself said, “Kevin Willis on the mound … Kevin Willis of course played for the Atlanta Hawks. So, Dontrelle Willis will pitch for the Florida Marlins and if there is a God, Jorge Sosa will pitch for the Braves.”

“That was one of the all-timers,” Braves longtime television and radio broadcaster Joe Simpson said. “I couldn’t even raise my head off the counter, I was laughing so hard.”

Here a few of the other all-timers the Braves' broadcasters have experienced while on the job.

Chip Caray
Many have likely seen Osbourne butcher “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” while attempting to sing it during the seventh-inning stretch of a Cubs-Dodgers game at Wrigley Field in 2003. What you might not have known was that Caray, then a Cubs announcer, later told Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully, “I’d pay a million dollars to hear you interview Osbourne.”

Scully replied: “It would be very short. It would be, ‘Who are you and what are you?'”

Though Chip was never around Skip on a regular basis before joining the Braves’ broadcast team in 2005, he certainly had a good feel for how to play off his father’s seldom PG-rated humor. One such instance occurred when they welcomed Atlanta Thrashers announcer Darren Eliot to the booth to help promote the city’s NHL team.

Pulling a page out of one of his favorite movies “Slap Shot,” Chip started asking Eliot about some hockey terms.

“I said, ‘Darren, for our audience that is not all that familiar with hockey, can you explain some of the rules, like what is high sticking?'” Chip said. “He talked about that as [my] dad described the play. Then, I said, ‘Well how about icing?' After that, I said, ‘What about cross checking?’ By this time, my dad was like, ‘OK, move along.’”

But Chip certainly wasn’t going to stop before leading his dad right where he wanted.

“I ended it by saying, ‘Darren, one last one, what about hooking?'” Chip said. “My dad said, ‘Well son, I already know an awful lot about that.’ I started laughing on air and I said, ‘Darren, there are some things you really don’t want to know about your parent.’”

Joe Simpson
Having been a part of the Braves' broadcast team since 1992, Simpson spent more than a decade developing a strong friendship with Skip. So it’s easy to understand why they both took pleasure in occasionally getting under each other’s skin.

One such instance occurred during a television broadcast in 2002, when they were asked to help promote Vanilla Coke. Skip often objected to these kinds of on-air promotions. Knowing this, Simpson seized the opportunity to agitate his partner.

“I was all in, because he wasn’t,” Simpson said. “We were given these bottles of Coke. Skip took this one little mini swig and then you just heard him throw it in the trash can. Meanwhile, I’m guzzling mine. My eyes are burning. I was tearing up, but I was bound and determined to drink almost that whole bottle. I almost did. When I got done, I was like, ‘Wow, that was great, did you like yours?’

“He’s not even looking at me and he says, ‘You know I’m a diabetic, right?’ I said, ‘Well, it didn’t seem to bother you a while ago when you ate that whole bag of M&M’s.’ He was livid. He even went to our producer Glenn Diamond after the game and said, ‘You better have a talk with that son-of-a-[gun].’ He was so mad.”

Ben Ingram
Asked about some of the funniest experiences he’s had since joining the Braves' radio team in 2011, Ingram remembered never getting a list of the umpires who were working a Spring Training game he was calling in Dunedin, Fla. So he improvised by telling his radio audience the umpire crew consisted of Fred Sanford, Lamont Sanford, Grady Wilson and Rollo Lawson.

“I had the whole cast of 'Sanford and Son' umpiring the game,” Ingram said. “You can get away with that stuff in the Grapefruit League.”

Ingram also learned that a radio announcer can be responsible for the decision to end a Spring Training game. Such was the case back in 2014, when crew chief Joe West called the Braves and Tigers off the field in the bottom of the ninth inning of a game at Champion Stadium. Detroit had claimed a one-run lead in the top of the ninth.

Knowing he would have at least a few minutes, Ingram went down the hallway to use the restroom. While in there, he heard the mumbling sounds of a press box announcement confirming the obvious, which was that the game had been delayed. Radio producer Brian Giffin must have also misunderstood the announcement.

When Ingram returned to the booth, Giffin told him the game had been called. As this occurred, West was in the home clubhouse talking to Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez and general manager Frank Wren about the possibility of finishing the game.

“They have the audio coming through the speaker in Fredi’s office,” Ingram said. “So after they hear me come on the air and say the game has been called, from what I’ve been told, Joe West looked at them and said, 'Well, I guess we’re done.'”

Ingram had no clue what had happened until 680 The Fan’s reporter Kevin McAlpin returned to the house they were renting and said, “Dude, do you know what you did?”

“I had to get in touch with Fredi [Gonzalez] and Frank [Wren] that night,” Ingram said. “Once they found out what happened, they changed their tune. In the end, I wasn’t the bad guy. So that was good.”

Jim Powell
Having spent more than a decade working with Bob Uecker in Milwaukee, Braves radio broadcaster Powell has a collection of comical stories. His favorite was when Uecker agreed to develop a fictional character named Jean-Jacque Smythe.

Every time the Brewers visited Montreal, Uecker would playfully get on the team bus and talk with a French-Canadian accent. So this led Powell to convince his radio partner to do a pregame interview within which he played the part of Smythe, who would criticize Uecker, Powell, Bud Selig and many other well-known Milwaukee figures.

“He would say something like, ‘We know you, we know all about your kind,’ in the voice of what would have sounded like a hostile French-Canadian journalist,” Powell said. “We initially did it just for fun, but after [Uecker] hemmed and hawed about using it on the air, he finally agreed to let us use it on the pregame show. The phones back at our flagship station were lighting up because this guy is ripping Bob Uecker, Bud Selig and the Brewers. Then we did [it] every time we went to Montreal. To this day, most people still don’t know that it was Bob.”