I have respect for Milo because he has been doing it for a long, long time, but I'm not a big fan of his. I know there are a lot of folks out there that dislike Richard Justice, but I have always agreed with him when it came to his thoughts on Milo. Even though he has gone out of his way to deny this, Milo has always had this need to try to make the big moments about himself. Justice was on 1560 a few years back and told a story about how he had recently done a story on Aaron's 715th. A few days after the story was published, Milo point blank asked him how he could do a story about Aaron's 715th and not mention him anywhere in the story. I'll also have this lasting memory of Milo away from the booth. I was at the Houston College Classic about five years ago when they did Astros Fanfest the same weekend. Milo had just gotten done doing a town hall type interview with fans over behind the Crawford Boxes. The national anthem started playing before the first pitch of the next game in the tournament. All of the fans that were milling about stopped and recognized the anthem. Behind where I was standing, though, Milo was having a full conversation with someone during the anthem. Not at a whisper, but in his full voice. As if the anthem wasn't even going on.
One story that doesn't get told a lot is that Milo jerry-rigged the Braves announcing rotation during Hank Aaron's chase to 715 to where he was always announcing on radio when Aaron came up to bat. One place that recounts the incident: http://www.talkingchop.com/2011/9/18/2432465/cardboard-memory-ernie-johnson I think one of the things that really grated on people (including me) during the past few decades was the over-the-top references to advertisers during the game. When the Astros joined everyone else in baseball in putting ads on the outfield wall in the mid-90's after the strike, (remember Keith Olbermann's FOX Sports ad at almost every park in the majors?) Milo went out of his way to ALWAYS mention them during the play-by-play. It's become comical over the years. Heck, I'm sure it's one of the reasons that Uncle Drayton conned Chick-Fil-A into sponsoring the foul poles at Minute Maid. Also as many have already pointed out, basic mechanics like the count, the score and judging fly balls accurately have been lost on the broadcasts for years. During 610's run of airing the Astros from '96-'98, Milo called into the morning show every day around 8:10 with "Milo for HI-LO" (HI-LO auto parts stores merged with O'Reilly in 1998). Basically Milo had to be given free reign to 'wax poetically' about whatever he wanted. If you had ever heard those call-ins it was obvious he went over the allotted time for the segment- a lot. As he did those, he made sure to talk about HI-LO auto parts store, and it justified the air time. I applaud Milo for his longevity. Radio/entertainment/sports is a tough business: many people to please, tough schedules, killer on the homefront, egos everywhere you go, ownership & management changes at the drop of a hat. But there is a way to go about things that can please your public (fans) and private (management, advertisers, support staff, etc) masters without trampling on everyone around you. Another example, in my opinion, Alan Ashby should still be with the Astros, and he should be the #1 radio play-by-play announcer. He dramatically improved during 2004 & 2005 seasons and helped make the broadcasts listenable by filling in the gaps around Milo. In the radio calls of Brad Ausmus' 9th inning home run and Chris Burke's 18th inning game-winning home run in Game 4 of the 2005 NLDS Ashby had to step into Milo's calls to help describe what happened. Here's the transcript of the radio call of Ausmus' 9th inning homer that tied the game at 6 (Milo in normal text, Ashby in bold): "Fly ball, way back into left-center field and back up into that wall; *crowd roars* No. It crashes back off the wall. Ausmus is headed- IT'S A HOMER It's a homer. IT'S GONE! It's a homer! A delayed call. *fireworks go off, train whistle in background* It came back off the facade. You thought it was in play! Oh my gosh! Home run Ausmus 6, 6 at Minute Maid Park! This ball maybe hit an inch above that line. Left of the 404 mark." However, as we saw after the 2005 World Series, Milo won out over Ashby too.
This is the best I could find...call is right around 2:44 <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HRh6Dh9Q4Mo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
You know Gene finally got his due in 2006, right? Milo was very enjoyable in the late 80s and 90s, although it took me a while to get used to him because I hated the departure of Gene. But yeah, the persona got on my nerves for many of the same reasons stated by others. That said, all the best old man. Please retire and have a wonderful time. Not on the radio.
