Editorial Review:

In Confessions of a Baseball Purist Jon Miller takes us on a journey into the heart of baseball as he's seen it from the best seat in the house. He brings to life the emotion of the night Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive games played record, the history-soaked drama when the Giants and the Dodgers faced off in a crucial pennant-race series in September '97, Eddie Murray's fitting return to the Orioles to hit his 500th home run; and the day Edward Bennett Williams--then-owner of the Orioles--approved the plans for the creation of Camden Yards. But Jon doesn't shy away from pointing a finger at the darker forces at work in the game: the follies of radical realignment; excessive reliance on novelties such as widespread interleague play; and owners and general managers who can't make a move without discussing the economic ramifications, even though that's the last thing their fans want to hear about.

True to the broadcaster's art, Confessions of a Baseball Purist calls the game the way Jon Miller sees it: with wit, with style, and with absolute candor. For the baseball purist in all of us, Miller provides a rallying cry, some warm memories, and reasons to keep believing in the game we love.

Broadcaster Jon Miller didn't know he was a baseball "purist" until acting commissioner Bud Selig accosted him with the moniker on national TV in 1993. "At one time," writes Miller in retrospect, "the label 'baseball purist' could've been worn as a badge of honor. Any legitimate fan would've been pleased to be thought of as a purist. But I suppose that to Mr. Selig, a purist was a lonely old man hunched over a windup Victrola, thumbing through a 1929 Who's Who in Baseball, fretting that the game just hasn't been the same since the Babe retired." In Confessions Miller admits to being a purist--loosely defined by him not as a forlorn fan stuck in a period-piece movie but as a fan knowledgeable enough to realize that baseball evolves for the good of the game--despite what myopic owners might try to perpetrate in the short term. In a chapter titled "The Good Old Days Are Now," Miller reminds die-hards of the old adage about things changing and staying the same. To wit, here's Ty Cobb in 1925: "The great trouble with baseball today is that most of the players are in the game for the money." Miller goes on to suggest that the 1990s will be remembered in 20 years as a "golden age" of hitting and that accusations of juiced balls, watered-down pitching, smaller ballparks, and expansion still cannot account for this decade's abundance of outstanding batters. The voice of the San Francisco Giants (and formerly the Baltimore Orioles) holds forth on everything from interleague play (it's good for the game but messy) to traveling with Cal Ripken (a game of Strat-O-Matic baseball reveals just how competitive the Iron Man really is). Occasionally he whiffs--as when he suggests that ballparks install 20-second time clocks to keep pitchers hurling at a reasonable pace. But ultimately what comes through the anecdotes and arguments is his tremendous love for the game and a generous capacity for recognizing the quality of the present and not just the past. --Langdon Cook

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

Flawed:

I got this book for Christmas and read it Memorial Day weekend. I love Jon Miller's voice and play-by-play skills. That being said the book leaves much to be desired. The chapter on the "Good Old Days are Now" is extremely silly looking today. Realizing that this was written between the '97 and '98 seasons at first Miller must have looked like a genius as McGwire and Sosa battled for the single season home run record, but in 2006,it seems ridiculous. Especially, after McGwire embarassed himself in front of... more info

humorous and entertaining anecdotes and thoughts:

This book brings forth the thoughts of one of the most well known and well respected broadcasters in baseball today. This book came out in 1998 when Miller started as a Giants broadcaster. His broadcasts on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball and radio broadcasts for the Giants bring out his personality. He's dedicated to his job and had been interested in broadcasting since he was a child. His passion for the game of baseball and his attentiveness to perfecting his craft only added to his skill in the descriptions... more info

A Fine Memoir:

I received this book along with Joe Morgan's as a Christmas present, and it was interesting to read them in tandem, as it shows why they are such a complementary broadcast team. Miller's book is more an anecdotal memoir than a detailed analysis of the game, but that doesn't spoil the enjoyment of it. His tribute to Ken Coleman, the retired Red Sox radio broadcaster, brought back to this Red Sox fan vivid memories of Miller's all-too-brief stay in Boston. The book, however, suffered from an editing job that... more info

Funny memoir:

More of a memoir than anything else, the book is unflaggingly interesting and funny, especially if one can imagine Miller himself reading it. An audiocassette version of this book might well be the ultimate way to experience it. In any case, it just breezes by, leaving you with a warm feeling and a greater desire to hear more Miller broadcasts afterward.

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