Congratulations, Jon Miller

I heard the news that Jon Miller was chosen as the Ford Frick award winner this year. He will be inducted into the broadcaster's wing of baseball's Hall of Fame. Now, Miller is just about the premier broadcaster in baseball. And he is one of my Giants announcers for thirteen seasons now.

It is really a pleasure listening to Miller on the radio. He is surrounded with other good professionals on the Giants broadcasting team. We are blessed here in the Bay Area to have such good announcers. I have listened to other announcers around baseball, both in travelling and in listening to call playbacks on the radio. Also there have been some fairly bad announcers here that have quickly been recycled to other teams. In my estimation, the Giants have one of the top broadcasting teams, thanks in large part to Miller. Jon has a great radio voice, descriptive vocabulary, knows the game, and is great at painting the picture the radio listener needs to follow the game.

Jon Miller has been elected to the Hall in what might be the middle of his career. I'm sure he won't become a slacker because of it, and I look forward to many more seasons of listening to his voice. It sure is a great sound when Spring Training starts. Congratulations, Jon Miller.

Joe Morgan on Trevor Hoffman

We have Comcast cable hooked up to our TV. They have some special features, one of which is sports programming on demand. Over the winter, they replayed classic games from the Giants past, and you can view it anytime during the several week span it is offered. We watched a replay of the Giants opening day 1993, that magical (and title-less) year that they won 103 games but lost the pennant on the last day. It was Bonds' first home game as a Giant, and he hit a homer in his first at bat.


Later in the game, a very young Florida Marlin named Trevor Hoffman appeared for some middle relief. His baby face, well manicured intro version of his trademark beard, and bright teal hat made him look about 18. Hall of famer Joe Morgan, a Giants TV announcer at the time, remarked that although Hoffman had some good stuff, he really wondered if Hoffman should be in the majors, and felt that he needed more time in the minors. Okay, the Marlins were in their expansion year and really sucked, so such a thing is not uncommon. Little did Morgan know at the time that Trevor would become the all-time saves leader, a lights-out closer and future hall of famer. Say it ain't so, Joe!

"Holy Toledo!" Remembering Bill King

How sad it was to hear of the passing of a legend. I realized that I had listened to Bill my whole life. What makes a man like Bill King so special is not necessarily his peculiarity, because he certainly was peculiar, but his familiarity. Amazing calls of last-second long bombs for thrilling Raider victories, witty and eloquent descriptions of A's home runs, and rapid-fire accounts of a Warriors fast break certainly spoke for his talent and his personality. But simply hearing his voice for three hours at a time, every day for decades, while working in the yard, doing the dishes, driving in the car or falling asleep on the sofa was what won the heart.

The mundane in broadcasting is what constitutes the greatness of the broadcaster. Holy Toledo, Bill, I will miss you.

Homers and Boobs: Braves Announcers

The largest collection of boobs ever assembled in a baseball setting didn't have anything to do with female anatomy. It was in the Atlanta Braves TV broadcaster's booth, shown on superstation TBS. Remember those guys from the 80's and 90's? Complete homers with their cutesy nicknames for every Braves player and the unbelievable ignorant arrogance from the mouthpieces of a perennial last place team (in the 80's anyway) in their toilet of a stadium. Man.

The biggest Dumb and Dumber I ever witnessed from those guys was during a Braves telecast during the last few weeks of 1993. I went over to my dad's house and we were watching the game on the tube, listening to those idiots ramble. If you remember '93, it was that great pennant race between the Giants and Braves, each team winning over 100 games and being decided on the last day of the season, and the great MVP race between players on each team.

Sometimes announcers will talk about something between pitches of interest to the fans, and they will continue the subject for several innings. Well, on this day they picked the National League MVP race as their subject. They went on for about five innings. This was Bonds' first year with SF and hands down winner of the MVP. Stats gurus later figured that Bonds' performance in'93 was one of the top ten seasons for a player in all of baseball history. Yet these clowns could only discuss which one of their home town chummy chums, Greg Maddux or Tom Glavine, should win the MVP. Inning after inning of "is it Maddux, or is it Glavine?" Stats and insight, back and forth. My dad and I were incredulous. "What about Bonds, you morons!"

For about five innings, not only didn't they discuss Bonds, they didn't even mention his name. Not once. Then, finally, at the very last minute, when their discussion was almost over, they realized their error. One of them said, "Hey, we've been talking about the MVP race for all of this time and we've only mentioned the two Braves pitchers." The other said, "Yeah, you're right. No discussion of the MVP would be complete without including [Phillies player] Lenny Dykstra!"

If Playtex made a bra to hold those boobs, it would be a world record for sure.