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Thursday, May 03, 2001

Jon Miller has spent hundreds of baseball-broadcasting nights in Camden Yards and Pacific Bell Park, so he was a natural to address this subject.

What do you think of PNC Park?

"Beautiful," boomed the voice of ESPN baseball and the San Francisco Giants, his Shakespearean actor baritone resonating off the press box's walls for the first time.

And he was only warming up.

Miller doesn't stick to one-word answers, which is a good thing for writers, baseball viewers and readers of the 255-page book he authored a few years back, back, back: "Confessions of a Baseball Purist." So he was a natural to ask about this latest in the line of old-fashioned, newfangled ballparks, a purist and deep voice of reason from whom we should expect nothing short of the bald truth (yeah, you should see the pictures of the hair system he once tried).

Miller waxed eloquent for minutes about "the Camden Yards model" and how it revolutionized this new wave: Ballpark at Arlington, Jacobs Field, Coors Field, Turner Field, Safeco Field, Enron Field, Comerica Park, Pac Bell Park, PNC Park. He launched into a discourse about studies that showed baseball fans preferred Ebbetts Field, Fenway Park (where he also worked as the Red Sox announcer) and Wrigley Field, their proximity and homey feel. He spoke at length about engineering feats, squeezing Camden Yards inside the warehouse and Eutaw Street boundaries, jamming Pac Bell inside a waterside walkway that, in initial blueprints, left the club with a 250-foot short porch to right field.

Man, it was an interesting 20-minute chat. Wish you could've been there. Space prohibits a quote-by-quote re-enactment. And all I asked were two questions, three tops.

Anyway, the heart of the matter is: His heart seems to be in San Francisco. And Baltimore.

"Pac Bell Park is in San Francisco, a world-famous destination city where people want to see those world-famous views. You could sit in the worst seat in the house and still have your breath taken away by the views."

But, Jon, you can see our arted-up parking decks ...

"Baltimore's hotel industry, restaurant industry, tourist industry went way up after that ballpark opened up."

But, Jon, check out our new North Shore garage ...

"The mathematicians and whatever say [a new ballpark] doesn't bring in the money you've spent on it. That's debatable, No. 1. No. 2, people don't understand that it's not just about the money it brings in, it's about that sense of community in the downtown. That other ballpark [the late Three Rivers Stadium] was just an island. You drove in, went to the game, got in your car and drove home. Candlestick was the same; it had nothing to do with the city of San Francisco. So now the city reaps serious benefits ... because people are going in there who wouldn't have ordinarily unless their relatives from Iowa were coming to town."

But, Jon, should everybody subject those poor relatives to the same-old-Pirates product on the field ...?

"Look, now you have a ballpark that celebrates the best of what the city has to offer. It's a place like Camden Yards became and Pac Bell is. It's like the philosopher said, 'It's the great, good place every city needs.' A gathering place. I think here in Pittsburgh that's what this ballpark is going to be."

That's a good enough Purist's Confession for me.

Program note

Greg Brown wasn't so much mad at partner Bob Walk on KDKA-AM's Pirates broadcast Tuesday as he was mad about Barry Bonds. Walk egged him on but quickly realized it didn't take much egging that night because Brown already was worked up. Seems Bonds blew off Brown's interview request inside the Pirates clubhouse, where Bonds was visiting.

"Usually, I'm trying to get his goat with something, and him with me," Walk said yesterday with a laugh. "But I knew then there wasn't anything I could say."

So an obviously riled Brown spent a minute or more publicly chastising Bonds' personality (or lack thereof). Gee, criticizing Bonds in this market ... that will only earn you about 2.8 million friends.

Chuck Finder can be reached at cfinder@post-gazette.com