Mark Grace on jail time for DUI: 'I deserve to be here'

PHOENIX, May 16 (UPI) -- Former baseball player and broadcaster Mark Grace said his stay at the Tent City jail complex in Phoenix has been a life-changing experience.

Speaking Wednesday at a press conference at the facility, where Grace was incarcerated after his second DUI offense in August, he said, "I've learned that, shoot, if you do what I did, and are stupid enough to do it twice, you belong here. I deserve to be here."

Grace's sentence ends June 10. He spends 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. at Tent City, a barracks of tents surrounded by barbed wire, and works in Scottsdale, Ariz., as the Arizona Diamondbacks' minor league hitting instructor during the day, the (Phoenix) Arizona Republic reported Thursday.

"Everybody makes a mistake," said Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who spoke at the press conference. "He (Grace) took his medicine. He's never complained here. He's a gentleman."