BOSTON – There was a buzz in the air on Saturday afternoon in the Fenway Park press box in the hours leading up to the eventual 6-3 win over the Rangers, but it had little to do with the game.
For people who don’t know what the environment of a baseball press box is like, it might surprise you. Particularly before the game starts, it often sounds like a library, but with the additional sound of scribes tapping on their keyboards for pregame transcriptions or stories.
But this day was different. Jonny Miller, who can best be described as a Boston sports media institution, was scheduled to return to the press box for the first time in three years in celebration of his 77th birthday.
“What time is Jonny getting here?” was the most frequent question heard leading up to his anticipated arrival.
Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy, who has known Jonny the longest among the Boston media, was among those who visited the park on a scheduled day off to greet him upon his return.
Roughly an hour before Saturday’s 4 p.m. game, Jonny arrived wearing one of his vintage white polo shirts (he must have 50 of those things) but foregoing his usual blue jeans for some snazzy khakis. Several media members enthusiastically greeted him the second he entered the press box, and with good reason.
For over 50 years, Jonny was a Fenway fixture who was the first one to the ballpark every day, just waiting for that clubhouse door to open.
Honestly, Jonny might have worked forever, but health issues forced him out of the daily grind of covering baseball and into retirement after Spring Training of 2024.
Jonny landed his dream job out of college with WBZ radio in 1972, and his task was to interview Red Sox players and managers and feed audio back to the station for placement on the news updates throughout the day and night. Though he is best known for his association with the Red Sox, Jonny was also around the Larry Bird Celtics of the 1980s and covered the Patriots through the 1990s. As the century turned, Jonny was pretty much all Red Sox, and baseball was always his biggest passion of all the sports.
The fact that Jonny did this job with a speech impediment caused by cerebral palsy only added to the admiration people had for him.
With his raspy voice and quintessential thick Boston accent, most New Englanders who follow the Red Sox have heard Jonny ask questions in press conferences.
When it comes to questions, Jonny is known for two things: Asking the first one, and making it a hard-hitting question. There were rarely any softballs from Jonny, especially when the team was playing below expectations.
Red Sox president/CEO Sam Kennedy made a rare visit to the press box on Saturday when he heard Jonny had stopped in, and conversed with him for a bit.
“Jonny, we miss you!” Sam said. “We miss having you ask the first question.”
In truth, the last few years haven’t been easy for Jonny. He suffered a stroke during the 2018 World Series and the airplane he was on, bound for Los Angeles, was diverted to Denver so he could get immediate medical attention. Alex Cora, Boston’s former manager, asked how Jonny was doing during one of the World Series press conferences in L.A.
Jonny was the media’s comeback player of the year in 2019, returning to the job he loves so much. Later that same year, Jonny was inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame, and several of his closest friends in the media made sure to be there.
But things became increasingly difficult for Jonny in his latter years on the job, particularly with some balance issues that led to numerous falls. Jonny always seemed to get back up, but health issues were wearing on him and you could see it on his face and in his demeanor.
That’s what made Saturday such a thing of beauty: Jonny’s smiling face lit up the press box.
“I think that was the happiest I’ve ever seen Jonny,” one media member texted to me.
The man who asks the tough questions also has a great sense of humor and a kind heart.
Jonny has a howl of a laugh, especially when making an inside joke with one of his colleagues.
For years, Jonny provided the press box with cookies. When my kids were young, the last thing he would say before he left the press box at night would be, “Ian, take home the rest of the cookies for your kids.” Fortunately, the cavity count never got too high in my household!
Around the holidays, Jonny would send various gifts to his many friends in the media. One year, you might be getting a package of steaks. The next? Maybe a laser printer or a quality laptop bag.
Jonny never expects gifts in return, but he’ll never say no to a good slice of pizza, a pastrami sandwich from a top-notch Jewish deli, or … an Oreo.
On Saturday, the gift for everyone in the press box was Jonny returning for the day. Hopefully it won’t be too long before he comes back.