Sunday, August 01, 1999
SPORTS ON TV-RADIO
ESPN's Miller among the best
BY JOHN FAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
If you tune into the ESPN Sunday Night Game tonight, you might wonder why Jon Miller, the play-by-play man, isn't working for the network full-time.
The answer: Because he doesn't want to. Miller, 47, remains a once-a-weeker for ESPN becasue he wants to do baseball on daily basis. He does that as San Francisco Giants radio and television voice. He was in town with Giants Friday.
Miller has been working for ESPN since 1989. When he started with the network, he was doing Baltimore Oriole games.
“After the first year, my contract with the Orioles was up,” he said. “I had the option of going to ESPN. I would have been doing the Sunday and Wednesday games. ESPN encouraged me to come. The contract was much for lucrative.”
But after conisdering it, Miller decided to keep his weekday job.
“Baseball's an everyday game,” he said. “I think being around the game on daily basis helps you keep up with news and nuances of the game. I think have the best of both worlds.”
Miller moved from the Baltimore job to the San Francisco job, with stipulation the Giants allow him to continue with ESPN.
“Eventually, I'll probably decide to do one or other,” he said. The drawback to doing both is the extra travel. The travel, always awful in baseball, is that much worse for Miller because he has to from wherever the Giants are to the game of week he's doing for ESPN. The Giants go from Cincinnati to Phoenix. But Miller went from Cincinnati to Boston — to do the Red Sox-New York Yankees — before going to Phoenix.
But Miller does the travel to keep that daily contact withthe game.
“If I was doing one or two games a week, I would prepare or those games,” he said. “But there's nothing like being around the game. If I see I strange play, I can ask the umpire about it the next day. I feel like I'm preparing for the Sunday night all week.”
The preparation shows. Miller is the best play-by-play guy working on TV today.
“If you do play-by-play, you think if I work at it, I might be pretty good,” said Channel 19's Dan Hoard, an excellent play-by-play guy himself. “But then you hear that guy, and you say, "I'll never be that good.' He's the best.”
Miller has that great voice. He decribes the game aas well as anyone. And he's funny. (His impressions are legendary in baseball. He does the best and only imitation of Vinny Scully calling a game in Japanese.)
Miller grew up in the Bay Area and was doing Oakland A's games by the time he 22. He's done soccer, basketball and hockey. But baseball is his sport.
He went from the A's to Red Sox to the Texas Rangers to the Orioles. He spent 13 years in Baltimore. That's where the networks started taking notice. He did an occasional game on NBC as a fill-in from 1986-89.
Then he landed the ESPN gig.
His pairing with Joe Morgan is the best in baseball. It's a shame they don't do the
World Series every year.
“I think Joe is the best analyst working,” Miller said. “I got a letter from a guy in Honolulu who watches our games. He expressed the sentiment that Joe might go to the Hall of Fame as broadcaster, as well as a player.
“It's real possibility.”
Miller is a lock for the Hall. He and Morgan are so good together because they play off each other so well.
“Chemistry is something you have or you don't,” Miller said. “Joe and I didn't know each other very well when we started. But we respected each, and we share a love for the game.”
That's probably why fans love listening to them.
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