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Miller
Time
ESPN
Baseball Announcer Talks With ArmchairQB.com
About Broadcasting, Bud Selig & The State Of The Game
 In
the past quarter of a century, the inimitable Jon Miller has established
himself as one of the best broadcasters in baseball.
A fixture on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball since 1990, the San Francisco
native joined his beloved Giants in late 1996 as a radio and television
announcer.
As spring training approached, AQB spoke with Miller to get his
thoughts on issues surrounding baseball and the people who broadcast
the game.
Part One (Click
here for Part Two)
In your book, Confessions
of a Baseball Purist, you talk about your belief that today's
players are bigger, faster, stronger and maybe even better than
those of yesterday. Did the 1998 season validate this opinion?
Well, I don't think I said they're better, at least I didn't mean
to. I meant to say they're just as good. When I was getting baseball-conscious
in the '60s, I used to hear that "The players today aren't as good
as they used to be" and to hear the same thing in the 1990s, I thought
was pretty hilarious. Let's give these players the credit for
being as good as they are.
There's an odd affliction among writers
and fans that it's somehow impossible to ever say a current player
could be as good as someone who played in the past. In
the book I said the modern era isn't the golden age but a golden
age, and advised people to enjoy it while it lasted. To see what
McGwire, Sosa and the Yankees did was great.
There were people who said what McGwire and Sosa were doing showed
how poor the current game is but, fortunately, those few naysayers
were drowned out by the vast majority of actual fans. The same
things happened when the Babe played - people, especially old timers,
said "It's a dead-ball era. This guy's hitting those long
home runs," and talked about how horrible it was.
In Confessions, you also spoke
of the desperate need for a permanent baseball commissioner. With
Bud Selig in place, are you happy with the current arrangement?
I think that Bud Selig certainly deserves, in all fairness, time
to show what he'll be able to offer the game. In the end, the
record will show what he did for the game or what he didn't do for
the game.
On the other hand I was very disappointed because on our
telecast on Jackie Robinson night at Shea Stadium, he answered a
direct question about minority jobs in baseball by promising us
he'd do something about it and telling Joe (Morgan) that the promise
would be fulfilled.
In the past year, I believe four jobs in the commissioner's
office were filled or created and, other than discussions with (former
Yankees general manager) Bob Watson, no minorities at all were interviewed
or considered. And Bob Watson felt he wasn't even considered. But,
Bud Selig will be judged by his record.
If you were commissioner, what would you
do to try to fix baseball's economic problems?
Well, first of all I'd totally revamp the marketing of the game.
Economic problems don't exist in terms of how much the industry
is generating. Baseball is an incredible success, generating 20
to 30 times what it generated 20 years ago. The game has never been
as flush with cash as it is today. The problem according to owners
is how the money is being distributed.
The first thing for a leader or the commissioner to do is to
quit airing the game's dirty laundry in public. Fans only care
about the game - the pennant races, the chases for cherished records.
The financial problems that the owners are having, no one cares.
A strong leader needs to start by directing people in the game as
to what needs to be discussed from a business sense with bankers
and partners versus how the game itself is being sold.
Every time Sandy Alderson, who is a very bright man, decried the
Dodgers' signing of Kevin Brown and kept saying how horrible this
was for the game, all I could think was that it was Sandy shifting
the blame for the A's demise under his stewardship. [Note: Alderson
is now a Major League Baseball official.]
Every GM who came out, even every owner who came out, seemed to
be saying "We're poor. It's not our fault. We're not gonna be good.
Don't blame us." If you buy a team, the buck stops there. If
you can't take the heat, don't buy the club. It's nothing more
than whining and covering for themselves. Baloney. Sell the game.
What about the state of major league baseball?
It's outstanding. Just look at the huge attendance numbers
despite baseball's horrendous track record at marketing and PR -
fans really love what they're seeing. It's time for baseball to
also emphasize to its owners that there's much more to the game
than just winning.
If winning were that important to the fans, no one would root for
the Chicago Cubs. Cubs fans enjoy going to the park and love the
Cubs, win or lose. They may even take delight in badmouthing the
Cubs when they're bad again. They're there one way or the other.
It's just time for baseball to understand what fans love about the
game. For any fan, the best of all worlds is when your teams win.
Anybody can sell that.
In George Will's book Bunts, the
chapter featuring you talks about the relationship between baseball
announcers and the fans. Do you think baseball broadcasters have
a closer relationship with the fans than those in other sports?
Yeah, absolutely. You look at Detroit when they were gonna fire
(broadcaster) Ernie Harwell. How many people who had never been
in the company of Ernie acted as if a family member had been wronged?
It wasn't that they knew him but they cared for Ernie and loved
him as a family member.
There's a personal aspect, especially on the radio. An indefinable
aspect of Harwell and Vin Scully, for instance, is that listeners
actually care about them as people. Baseball play-by-play allows
the broadcaster's personality to come out for three hours a day,
six months a year. You hear about his ability to tell a story and
laugh and handle unexpected situations.
What, if any, similarities do you see between
the Tim McCarver situation with the Mets and your departure from
Baltimore?
Well, in Baltimore I was never offered a contract. They didn't go
out and hire Jim Palmer [while the Mets hired pitching legend Tom
Seaver]. In that way it was a different kind of a situation. In
terms of whether the Mets were unhappy with the way McCarver did
broadcasts, I can't say. I think it's a shame he's not there.
I also think it's a shame for Seaver on what should've been a joyous
occasion, was instead turned into a real negative. Why was it
that it had to be in place of McCarver? That's the part of it that
I don't understand. But I don't know the situation. They left
themselves open to criticism. I know Bobby Valentine had expressed
displeasure with his style in the past.
The main thing is that Tim McCarver makes the game fun, and he always
brings you into the game, pointing out things that might otherwise
go unnoticed. His passion for the game always comes through, and
there's real value in that for the ballclub, particularly if a team
is struggling.
Now, in my situation, (the Orioles) said "We definitely
wanted to have him back," after I joined the Giants. But they
never said that to me when we were negotiating. After several
months of not getting phone calls returned, even when we had a deadline
to tell the Giants, I was surprised to hear that.
Does the fact that baseball teams hire
and pay the announcers create an uncomfortable conflict of interests
for local broadcasts?
I think there's an actual conflict, and the appearance of a conflict
of interest. In a perfect world, broadcasters would work for
stations without the right of approval from the ballclub and
that would be that. There wouldn't even be the appearance of
a conflict. In my career, I have never been told what to say or
how to say it.
The fact of the matter is, no matter who the guy is actually paid
by, if the ballclub doesn't like him, they're gonna have a say-so.
Every single ballclub in every sport has a right of approval over
the announcers.
After the [1996] season was over, [the Orioles] said things to my
lawyer about my broadcasting style, but I decided not to take them
seriously and perceived it as a negotiating ploy. Maybe I was wrong.
It comes down to the fans always knowing what's going on. The No.
1 thing that must be accomplished is to build credibility.
Tigers fans never questioned what Harwell said was true. Nor with
Scully or Harry Caray - that's a common thread. Caray was accused
of being a homer, because he rooted for the Cubs on the air, but
he was also the first one to be critical. The first one to point
out when somebody screwed up.
A homer is the person who doesn't tell you the truth. Phil
Rizzuto was a homer, but he'd spent his entire adult life in the
Yankee organization - how could people expect anything else? Plus
he was very entertaining.
Put Harry Caray at one end of the spectrum
and Phil Rizzuto at the other. Where would you place yourself?
I put Harry Caray and Vin at opposite ends on one hand, how they
went about the business of broadcasting. Harry rooted, he was
bombastic, a force of nature. Vin Scully is more a student of the
language, a storyteller, very elegant in broadcasting the
game. He's never rooted for the Dodgers even though this is
his 49th or 50th year. On the face of it could hardly be different.
The essential aspect - they brought people to the game and always
centered the broadcast on the game. When the game was dramatic and
at its most exciting, they brought you that drama. Hopefully, though
I go about it differently, I'd like to be thought of as having
the same essential ingredients - the passion, respect for the game
and ability to relay the drama.
Congratulations on recently being elected
to the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame. Were
you surprised?
Thank you. I was very surprised. I kept waiting for the other
part of the message…"Congratulations for making the Hall of
Fame and good luck on your retirement." I thought I should be older
than I am, making the Hall of Fame. But, I'm not going to refuse
it.
Please check back Tuesday for the
rest of ArmchairQB.com's exclusive interview with Jon Miller.
Photo courtesy of ESPN.com
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