Jon Miller San Francisco Giants What did John Miller do with the Giants? Miller has been the primary play-by-play voice of the San Francisco Giants
When did he start working with the Giants?
When did John Miller start working with the San Francisco Giants?
Since 1997, Miller has been the primary play-by-play voice of the San Francisco Giants (replacing Hank Greenwald), calling games on KNBR radio as well as KTVU (1997-2007) and KNTV (2008-present) television. In February 2007, he signed a six-year extension to remain the voice of the Giants through the 2012 season. On July 16, 2010, the Giants organization, including fellow broadcaster Dave Flemming, honored Miller at AT&T Park in a pregame ceremony about one week before Miller received the Ford C. Frick Award. Before the game started, Miller threw out the ceremonial first pitch. On September 4, 2010, Miller called his first game for CSN Bay Area as a substitute for Dave Flemming, who was broadcasting a Stanford football game on the radio. On May 27, 2003, during a game between the Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks, Miller called a play involving two defensive errors by the Diamondbacks and at least three separate baserunning mistakes by Giants outfielder Ruben Rivera. When Rivera was finally thrown out at home plate trying to score what would have been the winning run, Miller declared, The phrase was repeated numerous times on sports radio and highlight shows such as SportsCenter, and quickly became one of the most famous calls of Miller's long career. He did a similar call on the radio during Game 3 of the 2004 World Series, when Jeff Suppan made a baserunning mistake. On April 7, 2016, Miller accidentally called a grand slam by Hunter Pence for Buster Posey, but corrected himself mid-sentence: Both Pence and Posey later referenced the call on their social media accounts, and Miller himself used the phrase intentionally a week later when Pence hit another home run. CANNOTANSWER
Since 1997, Miller has been the primary play-by-play voice of the San Francisco Giants
Jon Wesley Miller (born October 11, 1951) is an American sportscaster, known primarily for his broadcasts of Major League Baseball. Since 1997 he has been employed as a play-by-play announcer for the San Francisco Giants. He was also a baseball announcer for ESPN from 1990 to 2010. Miller received the Ford C. Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010.

Early life
Jon Miller was born on Hamilton Air Force Base and grew up in Hayward, California, listening to Giants announcers Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons on the radio.  He attended his first baseball game in 1962, a 19–8 Giants' victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers at Candlestick Park.  As a teenager, Miller played Strat-O-Matic and recorded his own play-by-play into a tape recorder, adding his own crowd noise, vendors, and commercials.

After graduating from Hayward High School in 1969, Miller took broadcasting classes at the College of San Mateo.  He began his broadcasting career at the college's FM radio station (KCSM-FM) and UHF/PBS TV station (KCSM-TV), which reached much of the Bay Area.  His first baseball broadcasts were from CSM games.  At age 20, Miller joined KFTY-TV in Santa Rosa to work as their sports director. During this period, he would sit in the press box at Candlestick Park and record play-by-play of an entire game on his tape recorder.  Miller submitted one of these tapes to broadcaster Monte Moore, who helped Miller get his first baseball play-by play job in 1974, calling that year's World Series champion Oakland Athletics.  Miller was dismissed by the Athletics following the 1974 season.

For a brief period in the 1970s, Miller broadcast for the California Golden Seals of the National Hockey League. He also spent the early part of his career announcing San Francisco Dons and Pacific Tigers men's college basketball (1976–1980), the Golden State Warriors (part-time, 1979–1982) and Washington Bullets (part-time, 1984–1985) of the NBA, and the original San Jose Earthquakes of the North American Soccer League.  Jon Miller's first network exposure came in 1976, when he was selected by CBS-TV to broadcast the NASL Championship Game. From 1974–1976, Miller did play-by-play for the Washington Diplomats of the NASL. He also announced the Soccer Game of the Week for nationally syndicated TVS from 1977–1978.

Career
Miller was hired by the Texas Rangers shortly before the 1978 season to replace the ill Dick Risenhoover after the Rangers were unable to lure Fred White from Kansas City.  After two seasons with Texas (1978–79), he was hired by the Boston Red Sox (1980–82). "The lure of doing baseball in Boston was too much to pass up," Miller recalled.  In 1983, he was hired by Baltimore's WFBR Radio, which at the time served as the flagship station for the Baltimore Orioles.

Baltimore Orioles
After the 1982 season, Chuck Thompson moved from the radio booth to do TV broadcasts full-time, and WFBR's president Harry Shriver brought in Miller to handle radio play-by-play duties with veteran broadcaster Tom Marr. In his first year in Baltimore, Miller called the Orioles' World Series championship run, including the last out of Game 5:

He eventually signed a contract directly with the Orioles and, while the broadcast rights eventually moved to rival station WBAL, Miller remained their primary announcer through 1996. At the end of that season, Orioles owner Peter Angelos, displeased with Miller's often candid commentary on the Orioles play, declined to renew his contract, citing a desire for a broadcaster who would "bleed more orange and black." Miller returned to the Bay Area and joined his hometown Giants.

San Francisco Giants
Since 1997, Miller has been the primary play-by-play voice of the San Francisco Giants (replacing Hank Greenwald), calling games on KNBR radio as well as KTVU (1997–2007) and KNTV (2008–present) television. In February 2007, he signed a six-year extension to remain the voice of the Giants through the 2012 season.  On July 16, 2010, the Giants organization, including fellow broadcaster Dave Flemming, honored Miller at AT&T Park in a pregame ceremony about one week before Miller  received the Ford C. Frick Award.  Before the game started, Miller threw out the ceremonial first pitch.  On September 4, 2010, Miller called his first game for CSN Bay Area as a substitute for Dave Flemming, who was broadcasting a Stanford football game on the radio.

On May 27, 2003, during a game between the Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks, Miller called a play involving two defensive errors by the Diamondbacks and at least three separate baserunning mistakes by Giants outfielder Rubén Rivera. When Rivera was finally thrown out at home plate trying to score what would have been the winning run, Miller declared,  The phrase was repeated numerous times on sports radio and highlight shows such as SportsCenter, and quickly became one of the most famous calls of Miller's long career. He did a similar call on the radio during Game 3 of the 2004 World Series, when Jeff Suppan made a baserunning mistake.

On April 7, 2016, Miller accidentally called a grand slam by Hunter Pence for Buster Posey, but corrected himself mid-sentence:

Both Pence and Posey later referenced the call on their social media accounts, and Miller himself used the phrase intentionally a week later when Pence hit another home run.

His call of home run #756
On August 7, 2007, Miller made the call of Barry Bonds' record-breaking 756th home run on KNBR. His call of the historic home run will likely go down in history as the voice of the moment:

2014 World Series call
On October 29, 2014, Miller made the radio call on KNBR of the final out of the 2014 World Series, the Giants' third title in five years. His call also mentions the pitching performance of Madison Bumgarner through the playoffs. Miller's call went like this:

National baseball work
From 1986–1989 Miller did backup play-by-play for NBC's Saturday Game of the Week telecasts, paired with either Tony Kubek or Joe Garagiola. He also called regional telecasts for The Baseball Network in 1994–1995.

From 1990–2010 Miller did national television and radio broadcasts of regular-season and postseason games for ESPN, most prominently alongside Hall of Famer Joe Morgan on the network's Sunday Night Baseball telecasts.  Among his ESPN assignments, Miller called 13 World Series and 10 League Championship Series for ESPN Radio. During Game 3 of the 2000 World Series, Miller was forced to leave the booth after the top of the first inning due to an upper respiratory infection. Charley Steiner, serving as a field reporter for the network, filled in on play-by-play for the rest of the game; Miller resumed his duties in Game 4 of the Series. In November 2010, it was announced that Miller and Morgan would not be returning to the Sunday night telecasts for the 2011 season. Miller was offered, but declined, a continued role with ESPN Radio.

Other appearances
Miller's voice can be heard in the Season 1 Cheers episode "The Tortelli Tort", during a scene where the gang at the bar is watching a Red Sox game on the television. He also is briefly heard in the films 61* and Summer Catch and in the English release of the animated movie My Neighbors the Yamadas, and appears as himself in two episodes of the HBO series Arliss.

In 1998, Miller wrote a book with Mark S. Hyman titled Confessions of a Baseball Purist: What's Right—and Wrong—with Baseball, as Seen from the Best Seat in the House (), in which he expounded on the then-current state of the sport.

Miller guest-starred as Jordan in the episode "Little Octi Lost" of the 2016 reboot of the Cartoon Network original series The Powerpuff Girls.

Awards and honors
Miller received numerous honors for his ESPN work, including six Cable ACE Award nominations (winning the award in 1991 and 1996) and several Emmy Award nominations. The National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 1998, the Baseball Hall of Fame selected him for its Ford C. Frick Award in 2010, and the National Radio Hall of Fame inducted him in 2014. Miller was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame in 2010, with Dan Odum, his broadcasting professor from the College of San Mateo, serving as his presenter.

Commentating style
Miller's delivery is notable for his easygoing, sometimes humorous manner and measured use of hyperbole, particularly in banter with his partner sportscasters. He livens up many broadcasts with a few Hawaiian and Japanese phrases spoken with impeccable pronunciation, and has been known to announce a half inning totally in Spanish.  It is notable that Miller generally pronounces foreign language names with the source language pronunciation, in contrast with broadcasters who "Anglicize" foreign-named players. Miller is also known for his meticulous scorekeeping, having scored over 5,500 games since he started broadcasting.

Miller will occasionally quote lines from Shakespeare plays during radio broadcasts. He is well known for his foul ball call, "That ball is fooooul", and his emphatic cries of "Safe!" on close plays and "Two!" for a successful double play. He is also known for his unique pronunciation of the word safe, which sounds more like an umpire's call "hafe!", on plays where a baserunner attempts to slide into a base prior to being tagged out.  Early in his career, Miller would punctuate home runs with the signature call, "Tell it goodbye!" (in emulation of longtime Giants announcer Lon Simmons), although he has eschewed this in recent years (although he continues to refer to a home run as a "big fly"). His home run call for Hispanic batters is now punctuated, "Adios, pelota!" (although he occasionally uses this phrase for home runs hit by non-Hispanics as well).

Miller is noted in baseball circles for his impersonation of Los Angeles Dodgers announcer Vin Scully. Miller also imitates Harry Caray, Chuck Thompson, Jack Buck, Al Michaels, Babe Ruth, Bob Sheppard, and Harry Kalas, among others. Asked how he got into broadcasting play by play of baseball games, he recalled being in stands at Candlestick Park as a child and looking into the broadcast booth.  In the middle of the at-bat, he watched as the broadcaster consumed a handful of fries and a drink between pitches, thinking, "That is the life for me."

While calling games on the radio for the Giants, Miller occasionally introduces himself and his fellow broadcaster(s), followed by the phrase, "your Giants broadcasters". The same is repeated when Miller is on TV, except he replaces the word "broadcasters" with "telecasters." (Miller is referred to by fellow Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow as "The Big Kahuna".) He would use similar terminology for his Sunday Night Baseball telecasts on ESPN ("your Sunday night telecasters") and his World Series broadcasts for ESPN Radio ("your World Series broadcasters").

Personal life
Miller was involved in a seven-year marriage with Roberta Creeron in the 1970s, which produced two daughters.  In 1986, he re-united with his childhood babysitter, Janine Allen, who had also married and divorced and had one daughter.  The couple married in 1987 and have one son together.  The Millers reside in Moss Beach, California.  Jon's daughter Emilie Miller is an actress who appeared in a 2014 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

References

External links
 Jon Miller Ford C. Frick Award biography at the National Baseball Hall of Fame
 

1951 births
Living people
American Basketball Association announcers
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Aaron Shawn Estes (born February 18, 1973) is a former Major League Baseball pitcher.

High school
Estes attended Douglas High School in Minden, Nevada. As a senior in 1991, he was named Gatorade's Nevada State Baseball Player of the Year and finished with a 0.79 earned run average and 141 strikeouts in 61.2 innings pitched. At the plate, he hit .488 with eight home runs. He would go on to be enshrined in the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association Hall of Fame in 2016.

Estes initially committed to play college baseball at Stanford University but instead signed with the Seattle Mariners after being selected in the first round of the 1991 MLB Draft.

Minor leagues
Estes began his professional career with the Bellingham Mariners in "A" ball in 1991. He then played with the Appleton Foxes, Arizona League Mariners and Wisconsin Timber Rattlers from 1992-1995. The Mariners traded Estes to the San Francisco Giants on May 21, 1995 for Salomón Torres.

The Giants moved Estes through their farm system rapidly during the 1995 season, sending him to the Burlington Bees, San Jose Giants and Shreveport Captains.

Major league career

San Francisco Giants
Estes made his Major League debut with the Giants on September 16, 1995, working 5.1 innings as a starter against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He allowed five earned runs and collected the loss. He was 0-3 in three starts for the Giants that September.

Estes returned to the minors to start the 1996 season with the Phoenix Firebirds, but was recalled to the Majors to start a game against the rival Los Angeles Dodgers on July 13. Estes worked seven shutout innings to record his first career victory.

Estes had his best season as a professional in , when he went 19-5 with a 3.18 ERA for the Giants. He was selected to the NL All-Star team during this season. He also had four career home runs and 28 RBIs, including a grand slam in .

On May 24, 2000, Shawn Estes became the first pitcher in Giants' franchise history to hit a grand slam since Monte Kennedy in 1949.

New York Mets
The Giants traded Estes to the New York Mets on December 16, 2001 for Desi Relaford and Tsuyoshi Shinjo. The Mets signed him to a $6.2 million contract, avoiding arbitration. On June 15, 2002, Estes found himself at the center of a controversy when he started against the New York Yankees against Roger Clemens. In 2000, Clemens had beaned Mets catcher Mike Piazza, followed by the incident in Game 2 of the 2000 World Series in which Clemens threw a broken bat at Piazza. With the fans standing in anticipation of the showdown, Estes' first pitch was a fastball that was about a foot behind Clemens. Estes would hit a two-run homer off Clemens in the fifth inning of the eventual 8-0 Mets win, setting off a loud roar from the sellout crowd of 54,347 and derisive chants of "Ro-ger! Ro-ger!"

Estes would ultimately start 23 games for the Mets, with a record of 4-9 and a 4.55 ERA, before he was traded again on August 15 to the Cincinnati Reds for Brady Clark, Raul González, Elvin Andújar and Pedro Feliciano.

Cincinnati Reds
He pitched in six games for the Reds, finishing 1-3 with a 7.71 ERA.

Chicago Cubs
Estes signed a 1-year deal with the Cubs in 2003. He was moved to the bullpen towards September due to his struggles on the mound. However, on September 24 with the Cubs holding a one-game lead over the Houston Astros, Estes pitched a complete-game shutout en route to an 8-0 Cubs win at Cincinnati. Three days later, the Cubs wrapped up the division. He ultimately finished the season with a record of 8-11, 5.73 ERA in 28 starts.

Colorado Rockies
Estes signed a minor league deal with the Colorado Rockies in 2004. He was named the Opening Day starter. He beat Randy Johnson on Opening Day 6-2, pitching 7 innings while allowing just 2 runs on 2 hits.

He would enjoy his first winning season since the year 2000, finishing the season with a record of 15–8 in 34 starts, despite his 5.84 ERA being the highest among qualified starters.

Arizona Diamondbacks
Estes again signed a 1-year deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2005, following his stint the previous season with the Rockies. He was placed on the DL in July with a stress fracture in his left ankle. His season was cut short and he finished the season with a record of (7-8, 4.80 in 21 starts).

San Diego Padres
Estes signed a one-year deal with the San Diego Padres for the 2006 season but made only one start before he was lost for the  season due to Tommy John surgery.

Estes began his  comeback with minor league appearances in  Single-A, though he was soon promoted to Triple-A Portland. After his first start in Portland, Estes reaggravated his injured pitching elbow. He was placed on the disabled list retroactive to August 6.

On May 8, , Estes finally returned to the Majors after missing most of the previous two seasons with injuries. He started eight games for the Padres in 2008, finishing 2-3 with a 4.74 ERA. The Padres chose not to re-sign him after the season.

Los Angeles Dodgers
On January 9, , Estes signed a one-year minor league deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers with an invitation to spring training. He was expected to compete for the fifth starter position but pitched poorly in spring training games and was released on March 22. However, after thinking about his options, he decided to stay with the Dodgers and report to minor league camp to attempt to transition into a situational reliever The Dodgers assigned Estes to the AAA Albuquerque Isotopes to open the season, where he was 3-4 with a 3.08 ERA in 13 starts before announcing his retirement because he didn't want to pitch in AAA.

Washington Nationals

On February 6, 2010, Estes signed a minor league contract with the Washington Nationals. On March 11, 2010, the Nationals released him. After his release from the Nationals, he retired from baseball.

Life after baseball 
On July 31, 2010, Estes was honored with a plaque on the Giants Wall of Fame along with former teammate Rich Aurilia.  Estes and Aurlilia serve as co-hosts of Giants pregame and postgame shows on NBC Sports Bay Area. He is also an occasional fill-in analyst on Giants road game broadcasts, working alongside Duane Kuiper. 
Estes previously did television color commentary for the Reno Aces of the Pacific Coast League.

Personal life
Shawn is married to Nathalie Evashevski Estes. They have four children and live in Arizona.

References

External links

1973 births
Living people
San Francisco Giants players
New York Mets players
Cincinnati Reds players
Chicago Cubs players
Colorado Rockies players
Arizona Diamondbacks players
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Baseball players from California
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Minor League Baseball broadcasters Eldridge Small (August 2, 1949 – May 11, 2015) was an American football defensive back who played with the National Football League's (NFL) New York Giants from 1972 to 1974.

Small was born in Houston, Texas, and attended Wheatley High School before playing college football for the Texas A&I Javelinas from 1968 to 1971 as a wide receiver and defensive back. As a receiver, he had 20 touchdowns in his college career, made 167 receptions, and had 2,547 receiving yards. Small was the Javelinas' all-time receptions leader until 2013, when Robert Armstrong surpassed his total. Texas A&I won two National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics national championships during his time with the team. The university's Javelina Hall of Fame inducted Small in 1991.

In the 1972 NFL Draft, the Giants selected Small in the first round with the 17th overall pick, which they had obtained from the New England Patriots in a trade for defensive end Fred Dryer. He played in 34 games for the Giants over three seasons, intercepting one pass, in 1974. In 1975, the Giants traded Small to the Cleveland Browns, but he was released before the start of the regular season. Following his NFL career, he began coaching in the Houston Independent School District, working for Sterling High School as an offensive coordinator. On May 11, 2015, when he was 65 years old, Small died.

References

External links
NFL.com profile

1949 births
2015 deaths
American football defensive backs
New York Giants players
Players of American football from Houston
Texas A&M–Kingsville Javelinas football players