During a Q-and-A earlier this week with the Golf Channel's Rich Lerner, Miller also revealed he knows Tiger Woods isn't a fan of his, but it doesn't seem to bother him.
"I’ve tried to be fair with his career and what he’s done," Miller said. "I was the first guy to say, ‘You know the guy’s unbelievable with his guts.’ He’s got that quality that makes people wilt. I’ve also said he doesn’t drive it too well. I’ve noticed the players hate it when I give them a lesson on national TV. I’ll say, ‘Watch Tiger; he squats his thighs down and then he pops his left shoulder up and the hip comes up and he blocks it right or flips it left.’ What am I supposed to say, ‘Oh, well, it’s just a bad day?’

More stories this week on Miller:
From the Palm Beach Post
From USA Today
From The Associated Press
From New York Newsday
From the Washington Post

==For those who didn't bother to rise at 5 a.m., or even think about setting the TiVo for it, NBC's "Roadblock" coverage of the first group to tee off at the U.S. Open on Thursday morning wasn't much more than a network-wide commercial for the upcoming coverage, trying to irk viewers who otherwise couldn't care less into thinking this was much bigger than their episode of "The Twilight Zone" (on the SciFi Channel), "Squack Box" (on CNBC), "JAG" (on the USA Network) or "Top Chef" (on Bravo), all of which were interrupted by the 10-minute live viewing of Tiger Woods, Jeff Oglivie and Richie Ramsey hit their first tee shots into the rough.
Fact is, the cut-in to the SciFi Channel's coverage of the "Twilight Zone" episode called "On Thursday, We Leave For Home" had to have left their regular viewers thinking a real episode of the old series had taken over. The highlight of that live cut-in had to be Woods about to tee off back away and say, "C'mon guys" at the row of photographers off to his right who were snapping away. At least he didn't blurt out, "G-- Damn It" after his tee shot on the par 3 13th settled into a dip on the green that he didn't want to be in. That was later heard on the ESPN coverage. Live.

==A reference back to the book review on "The Stark Truth," by ESPN's Jayson Stark , and what he's trying to do listing the most overrated and underrated players in baseball history, we come to a book by his "Baseball Tonight" ESPN colleague Tim Kurkjian "Is This a Great Game or What? From A-Rod's Hear to Zim's Head -- My 25 Years in Baseball" ($24.95, 258 pages, St. Martin's Press), and begin to wonder if he's not on some kind of performance enhancing substance because of the enthusiasm he continues to have for the sport. Among the endless stories about goofy characters of the game, how statistics can be tracked down by any SABR member within seconds and what it's like to get hit in the face with a ball (not a personal experience, but interviewing those who have) is one chapter on what it's like to work for ESPN's "Baseball Tonight." If Harold Reynolds needs a character reference in his wrongful termination suit against ESPN, Kurkjian provides it in this chapter. After talking about how, on a deadline story, it takes 15-to-20 people to organize facts, clips, and other information in the ESPN offices, Kurkjian writes (in something that must have been done more than a year ago, since Reynolds hasn't worked at ESPN since July, '06): "Harold Reynolds, who has done more shows as a baseball analyst than anyone at ESPN, was often the leader of that teamwork. There is no better, friendlier person than Harold Reynolds. That guy you see laughing and smiling every night on TV -- he has the whitest teeth of any person I've ever met -- is who he really is. ... Reynold's greatest strength is his touch with people." He then relayed a story about how he got about 20 New York Yankees players after a game to present Darryl Strawberry with a get-well card, or talked some policemen into giving them a ride to their hotel out of Pac Bell Park in San Francisco after he had just met them.
In another chapter asking why certain things are held as gospel in baseball -- such as no catcher can be left-handed -- Kurkjian also asks: "How could Eric Karros finish his career with more stolen bases than Joe DiMaggio (59 to 30)? In 1950, DiMaggio's brother, Dom, led the league in steals with 15.
Stats like that, no wonder Kurkjian isn't lost for his love on the game.
Another ESPN reporter, Jeremy Schaap, has also delivered his second project, "Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics" ($24, Houghton Mifflin, 272 pages). Following up from "Cinderella Man," a biography of James Braddock, Schaap seems to have dug up new and previously unpublished interviews on the 1936 Berlin Games, talking to Owens' relatives, among others. And the myth that Hitler himself snubbed Owens ... read more for yourself. A review in Publishers Weekly says the book was "written as though the film treatment were already completed."

==Speaking of Reynolds: As he awaits final word from his wrongful termination lawsuit against ESPN, the former Angels second baseman has hooked up with MLB.com to interact with fans through a blog and online chats five days a week.

==WeAreSC.com, the USC Trojan fan site that has been most recently part of the Scout.com network, has started a cross-promotional and content integration deal with ESPN, along with the University of Florida's GatorCountry.com and the University of Oklahoma's OUInsider.com. Player ratings and other analysis from ESPN.com will be incorporated into each site's content, and stories from the sites will go onto SPN.com's team pages. ESPN previously struck a deal with Ohio State's Bucknuts.com. WeAreSC.com started in 1998 with the Rivals network. Webmaster Garry Paskwietz says that while there were many advantages to being aligned with Scout, the new ESPN deal "was too good to pass up."

==And speaking of the WeAreSc.com's most famous blogger... Pete Arbogast has kept hinting about wanting to announce this new full-time job he's procured. In his latest entry, the somehow still employed USC football (not basketball) play-by-play guy writes about how he's been on campus a lot lately, "where I now work full time (although the official announcement of what it is I am actually involved in has not been made public yet, so I am sworn to secrecy until that time about that subject)." We actually could tell you what this time-consuming job is, but why ruin the surprise? Just consider this: The official USC website has a large notice advertising its new "Trojan TV" all-access broadband pay service that, for $9.95 a month or $79.95 a year starting this fall, will include live game coverage of many non-football related sports, a “Trojan Football Unplugged” video show and a "Trojan Talk" audio show. Fill in the blanks.

==Back to the story about the Louisville Courier-Joural blogger who had his credential revoked while writing about the University of Louisville's Super Regional game against Oklahoma State last week, read more about writer Brian Bennett's thoughts about the whole episode, his new-found fame and what he plans to try to do this weekend at his Courier-Journal site home.
After the story broke about Bennett's dismissal, bloggers weighed in -- most in his defense -- about the topic. The Sports Business Daily reported on its "Sports Blog Index" that 18 percent of what was written on blogs was "very negative," 53 percent was "negative," 26 percent was "neutral" and 3 percent was "positive."
Some point out that the NCAA and University of Louisville were within their rights and distributed a memo beforehand to members of the press, reminding them of the policy in question.
Among some of the responses:
From Card Chronicle Blogger: "But I don't think that the NCAA really "fears" blogging the way some people do, rather I think that they, like much of the rest of the Western World, are still extremely unsure of how to approach this "New Media" so they're hoping someone else will figure it out for them."
From Dan Shanoff, formerly of ESPN.com's "The Daily Quickie": "There are lots of angles, but this is the part I am going to focus on: It showed a complete tone-deafness to the realities of sports-media production and consumption. To not realize that live-blogging has become THE most effective and most efficient form of reporting and analysis of sports events exposes the NCAA's ignorance."
From Real Lawyers Have Blogs: "This probably has more than a few entrepreneurs shaking their heads as to their blogging business models. I have always taken the view that blogging from a public place was wide open. But when the NCCA buys the rights to broadcast this may raise a whole nother issue."
From The Engagement Principles, posted by Tom Chandler: “While the NCAA has broadcast rights to protect, restricting live blogging seems more than a little odd; are they going to start seizing cell phones to prevent reporters/spectators from reporting halftime scores or sending cell-phone pictures of a game?”

==In a related story, the New York Islanders have announced it will set up its own "blog box" for bloggers who are over 18, have a legit blog and want to blog along the game and cheer, which will be separate from the "real" press box of newspaper writers and broadcasters. To get more on this concept, Deadspin.com editor Will Leitch interviewed the Islanders' VP of communications, Chris Botta, and posted this interview on his site Wednesday.

==ESPN and ESPN2 will use Mike Patrick, Orel Hershiser and Erin Andrews at the College World Series as the primary broadcasting team starting this weekend. The two channels do every game leading up to the best-of-three finals starting June 23. After today's Louisville-Rice and Mississippi State-North Carolina (4 p.m., ESPN2), ESPN will have UC Irvine-Arizona State (11 a.m.) and Oregon State-Cal State Fullerton (4 p.m.) on Saturday. Gary Thorne-Robin Ventura and Sean McDonough-Barry Larkin will also do games.

==ESPN Classic will dance around the topic of boxing and Hollywood's infatuation with it during an hour-long show, "Ringside: Boxing and Hollywood," that airs Saturday at 5 p.m. Hollywood had produced more than 150 films with boxing at the center of it, and this special will incorporate many of the actual fights the movies portrayed, including lengthy segments from the sixth Sugar Ray Robinson-Jake Lamotta fight, nicknamed the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, that is highlighted in the 1980 "Raging Bull." , and the James Braddock-Max Baer bout portrayed in the 2005 "Cinderella Man," and a Jack Johnson-Stanley Ketchel fight featured in the 1970 "Great White Hope." Brian Kenny and Bert Sugar will also nterview Carl Weathers from the "Rocky" movies;
Kris Kristofferson, who boxed in the golden gloves as a teenager and who acted in a movie with Muhammad Ali; director Ron Shelton;" former lightweight champ Ray Mancini; boxing historian Al Bernstein; and former heavyweight contender and current thespian Michael Bent. There are also segmetns on "The Hurricane" the Denzel Washington-acted story of boxer Rubin Hurricane Carter, behind-the-scenes drama in the making of the Broadway play "Great White Hope", and the making of "Rocky."

==Fox sends Matt Vasgersian and Joe Girardi to do the Dodgers-Angels game from Dodger Stadium on Saturday at 12:55 p.m. on KTTV Channel 11. The game is only going to 7 percent of the country (L.A., Las Vegas and San Diego), while most see San Francisco at Boston (66 percent, with Kenny Albert and Tim McCarver). In a release issued by Fox, McCarver, who sees Barry Bonds and the Giants for the first time thi sseason, senses that a lack of buzz about him approaching the all-time home-run record is because fans are reacting to Bonds' reaction. “Because of his nature, most MLB fans are absolutely confused as to how to react to Barry Bonds,” said McCarver “The man has mastered the art of appearing indifferent about the controversy that surrounds him, as well as his quest for the all-time home run record. The fans care deeply about the record itself and know that they’re watching history, but when the guy on stage appears not to care one way or the other, it’s very difficult to get behind him, no matter what the circumstances.”

==Fox is also covering the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix race Sunday (10 a.m.) at Indianapolis Motor Speedway a week after rookie Lewis Hamilton became the first black to win an F1 race, doing it in Canada, and moving into first place in the point standings.

Photo by Tom Casino/Showtime
==One of these freaks is not like the other: It was Showtime boxing announcer Steve Albert, second from left, who was treated to a reception by the network earlier this week to celebrate his 20 years as host of its boxing series. Family and friends were invited, which meant a rare chance to pose with broadcasting brothers Marv, right, and Al, left. The fourth member? Let's see. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame ... he's often seen picking out which pair of underwear Kobe Bryant should wear ... he still has Eric Dickerson on speed dial ... the name will come to us eventually. By the way, Steve Albert goes into the World Boxing Hall of Fame in October.

==And (almost) finally, ESPN has reached a deal to buy Cricinfo, the world's leading cricket website. Why? Why not. And it means its only a matter of time before the World Leader in Sports starts sliding a folded piece of paper with a number written on it across the table to the owners of Whiffleball.org.

==And finally, tickets to the Aug. 2-4 X Games 13 started going on sale Thursday at Ticketmaster.com and the box office at Staples Center and Home Depot, ranging from $5 to $25. Package deals will be sold later for all-inclusive venue events ($90 per person) or all vert contests at Staples Center ($45 per person) and all moto racing events at Home Depot Center ($60 per preson). Or, you could just stay home and watch it all on ESPN. Which, you'd think the network would want you to do as your first option.

==OK, really, this is the last one:
Will Ferrell, who already did enough damage for the NFL Network before its draft, has a series of short videos on Golf.com, promoting ... his cool attire? This one allows him to brag about his $30,000 wood: