Scott Miller delivered a whole lot of scoops over the years, the kind that could make the competition jealous and leave them muttering expletives to themselves. Of course, that was pretty much the only time anybody could get mad at Miller, a practically universally liked sportswriter among peers in an industry where, let’s just say, that’s not common.
Miller, a nationally acclaimed baseball writer who grew up in Monroe and graduated from Hillsdale College, has died at the age of 62, following a battle with cancer.
USA Today’s Bob Nightengale shared the news Saturday on social media, which triggered an outpouring of condolences, many of them with a similar sentiment: The baseball community lost a genuinely nice man.
“If you’re talking exceptional baseball writing, and an extraordinary man, you’ve captured Scott Miller,” said Lynn Henning, a longtime sportswriter at The Detroit News and a friend of Miller’s. “His personal goodness surpassed even his journalism, which wasn’t easy. There’s a reason he was so widely read, and even more widely respected by managers and players, as well as by readers and, of course, front-office people.
“He was the definition of personal and professional excellence.”
Miller was born in Monroe and attended Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central, before attending Hillsdale, where he was sports editor, and later editor, of the school paper, before landing his first professional job as sportswriter of the Hillsdale Daily News while he still was in college.
After graduating from Hillsdale in 1985, he moved to California, where his father (Alan, once a very influential editorial writer and columnist at The Detroit News) had taken a job in San Diego, and he landed at the Encinitas Coast Dispatch.
He eventually joined the Los Angeles Times, first its San Diego edition, then its Orange County edition. Miller covered the occasional baseball game while working for the Times, but baseball was his passion, so he left to cover the Minnesota Twins for the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
His love of baseball came from reading the News and Free Press, growing up in Monroe. The Tigers won the 1968 World Series when he was 5, and the 1984 World Series when he was in college.
“I pretty much learned to read by following sports in The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press,” Miller recently said for a profile of his 40 years in the business published on Hillsdale’s website. “I followed the Tigers and all the other sports in the papers. But I gravitated toward baseball as my favorite sport. And I loved it.
“One day, in seventh grade, I was reading the Tigers coverage in the Detroit papers and a lightbulb came on: There is a job out there where you can just go cover baseball? From them on, it was eyes on the target.
“I never wanted to do or be anything else.”
On moving from L.A., where wife Kim was from, to Minneapolis, he said: “I wanted to be a baseball writer now.”
He spent five years with the Pioneer Press before making the jump to the digital space and one of sports journalism’s first national websites, CBS Sports. He spent more than a decade there before moving to Bleacher Report, and eventually to the New York Times, for whom he provided baseball coverage for the 2021 and 2022 World Series.
Miller also has worked as analyst for MLB Network Radio, worked on broadcasts for the San Diego Padres, and recently was working on a profile of Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani for Newsweek Japan. Miller lived in southern California.
Miller also is an author, having written two baseball books ― Ninety Percent Mental, which he co-wrote with former major-league pitcher Bob Tewksbury, and Skipper: Why Baseball Managers Matter and Always will, which Miller completed last fall, and which was published last month. Miller talked to 200 people for his latest book.
“They might not have the authority of an Earl Weaver, Sparky Anderson or Billy Martin, but it’s still a hugely important job,” he told Hillsdale for the recent profile. “It’s just different, and they’ve got to have certain skills to succeed.”
Speaking of skills, Miller had the writing skill and the reporting skill ― not all sportswriters are strong at both.
He also had the personality skill, which endeared him to the game’s players, managers and executives, who trusted him to tell their story with accuracy, and, if it called for it, with empathy. He never wanted just a quote. He wanted to undetstand. He once got then-major-leaguer Dee Gordon to open up for what became a powerful story on an upbringing amid unspeakable household viol
Miller’s personality endeared him to colleagues all across the baseball-writing spectrum, many (this writer included) with a story about how Miller was kind to them when they were just getting started in the business.
Miller, who made a final trip home to Monroe last month, often kept in touch with those young journalists as they progressed on their career. He was far more comfortable publicly promoting the work of others than his own, even though his own work usually was typically top-shelf. When diehard baseball fans would come across a unique or trendy feature that kept them reading till the very end, there was a good chance the byline was Miller’s.
“No one spread joy like Scott Miller,” The Athletic’s Tyler Kepner, formerly a colleague of Miller’s at the New York Times, wrote on X. “Truly one of the kindest, most upbeat people I’ll ever meet. Loved his family, friends and the game.
“He made life better for everyone he knew.”
Wrote Ken Rosenthal, also of The Athletic, on X: “It just breaks my heart. Great writer, better man.”
Miller covered 29 of the last 30 World Series and cast 26 ballots for the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was at most of baseball’s flagship events (spring training, Opening Day, All-Star Game, Hall of Fame induction ceremony, World Series, winter meetings, etc.) for the last three decades. He made a cameo in the 2014 Jon Hamm baseball movie, “Million Dollar Arm,” and got to walk the green carpet at the movie’s world premiere.
He loved Bruce Springsteen and burgers and traveling. While traveling the country and world on the baseball beat, Miller made sure to see far more than just the press box and the hotel room.
On Saturday, Major League Baseball released a statement that read: “Tonight we remember Scott Miller ― a true gentleman, a class act, and an expert of his craft who loved our national pastime. We extend our deepest condolences to his loved ones and his readers throughout the game.”
Miller is survived by wife Kim and their daughter, Gretchen. Arrangements were not immediately known Saturday.
tpaul@detroitnews.com
@tonypaul1984