ESPN’s Jon Miller Has a Strange, Halting Way of Speaking
I’ve noticed - something weird about – Jon Miller, who – does play-by- – play on the ESP – N – Sunday Night Baseball broadcast.
It makes me seasick.
For a guy who speaks for a living, Miller has a voice that lacks the euphonious flow of, say, every other broadcaster I’ve ever heard. His sentences don’t rise and fall, in speed or pitch, under the momentum of their meaning. He seems not to know how to use dependent clauses, which, in case you haven’t been paying attention, are the on-the-fly footnotes that flesh out sentences that would otherwise zoom toward their targets with unforgiving speed. (Fleshing out sentences, of course, is the mostly invisible artform that radio and tv guys espouse to fill the air during those several-hour games.)
No, Miller cuts and weaves like Barry Sanders, without needing to. To extend the metaphor, maybe he should just know where the seam is going to be and hit it spot on at full speed, finding the next word and the next word smoothly instead of making it seem like he’s pausing to think about every decision as if a lewd comedian on truly-live TV, trying not to be reprimanded.
Joe Buck, by the way, is at the other end of this spectrum… his sentences flow so seamlessly into each other that it truly appears he doesn’t ever stop talking – at least until he puts me to sleep, or I mute the TV or change the channel, one of which I inevitably do because the put-on is just too much, discussing everyday sports with such restraint as if they’re tonight’s serious world news.
Since Miller’s doing the Yankee game right now, here’s what I think about the usual suspects: Michael Kay, too nasal, and way too much of a homer. John Sterling, too full of himself. Suzyn Waldman, too much for my mind to wrap itself around that someone with such a think Boston accent could be such a big Yankee fan. Jim Kaat was goofy sounding. I never minded Phil Rizzuto or Tom Seaver, by the way, nor Paul O’Neill nowadays.
This was not all just me gearing up to say that SNY’s Gary Cohen’s voice is my favorite, both in what he says and how he says it. But put Cohen and Miller ear-to-ear and you’ll hear what I’m talking about.
4 Comments »
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I don’t know if he’s still broadcasting, but I think Chip Caray might be the worst baseball announcer I’ve ever heard. I remember having to put up with him during last year’s playoff between the Yanks and Indians. As you may know, I get easily irritated by the overload of pointless statistics I often hear during games. But the worst thing about Chip Caray was that he seemed to just make up pointless stats off the top of his head. Like, “This year, no one hit more opposite-field homers with runners on first and third in even-numbered innings than Alex Rodriguez.” (I may exaggerate slightly but not much.) Of course when others actually researched this pointless stat, they’d discover that A-Rod was actually 7th in the league in such homeruns. So yeah, I can’t stand Chip Caray.
September 24th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
This is the first negative critique I have ever heard of Jon Miller. Rightfully so, Joe Morgan usually gets the beat down.
I guess I have to say that I do not agree, but I’m biased. Miller was ‘The VOICE of the Orioles from 1983-1996 and had this memorable call:
‘Everybody else is in muted silence. The pitch! Line drive! Ripken catches it at shortstop! And the Orioles are champions of the world!’
Not to mention he called the 1995 ‘2131′ game, which still makes me tear.
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I grew up listening to Chuck Thompson doing the Orioles (and Colts), and thought his was a reference point for calling a ballgame that would never be met. Jon Miller proved me wrong. I love the ever-so-slight hint of mischief in his voice-especially on the radio
(like the roast beef sandwich ad he read each game “….sliced thin, and piled high on a Ken Kaiser bun.”). When the O’s failed to sign Mussina I cursed Peter Angelos; when he failed to sign Jon Miller, I ceased being an O’s (or WOE’s) fan after a nearly religious devotion going back to Powell, the Robinsons, Aparicio, Davey, etc.
I saw Jon Miller do his banquet circuit schtick way back in about 89. He was funny, friendly, did a million voices and was-IS-clearly a huge talent. I think his style is the best in sport. As satisfying as Chuck Thompson on my transistor radio in 1962 describing a diving stop by Brooks, or a towering shot by Boog.
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:58 pm
One vote for Chip Caray, followed by two Orioles fans defending Jon Miller, who used to do Orioles games. Ok.
I haven’t heard much Chip Caray, not enough to call him my least favorite anyway. He bothers me a little bit, but really only in that hotel-room kind of way, the seeming familiarity, flipping past a game and expecting the Mets to be one of the teams playing, but it’s Cubs-Cardinals and it’s sort of like home but really not at all like home. Pointless statwise, yes, I am unilaterally against pointless stats – mere information served up as something more. Knowledge from a can, nutritionless, valueless powder, with too much salt.
Now. Jon Miller. I’ve had to put up with him on numerous road trips via ESPN Radio, plus the occasional Sunday night game I’d watch on TV and eventually mute. I’ve gotta say, the homers have a right to defend Jon Miller’s place in their history, especially for transmitting memorable calls – Nick, I understand. But now Jeff, his style is the best in sport? Really? Bob Costas, Al Michaels, neither of those surmounts Jon Miller? They’re informative and witty, like a Ted Koppel who seems into sports. I’m pleased you addressed an element of his style, the hint of mischief, plus his general talent as a funnyman – but the tone of his voice and what he says to me can’t escape the rhythm with – without? – which his words take shape. They seem to be escaping his mind like air bubbles from a bathing suit, not rolling off his lips like a newlywed whistling in Springtime. That’s the kind of sound I demand, and have surely come to expect, in an announcer. And that’s the kind of sound Jon Miller is simply incapable of producing.