It’s much easier these days to not like a TV announcer than it is to like one. They just get so aggravating (especially when the team you are pulling for is losing) that it makes you appreciate the invention of the mute button.

I have never watched a sporting event strictly because of an announcer, but there are a select few that do make it more enjoyable. Actually, there’s one less now than there used to be.

Johnny Miller retired from NBC’s golf coverage after 29 years last week. It seemed strange that he did it at the Phoenix Open and seemed even odder that he did it after Saturday’s third round instead of the final round. (He came back to call the Phoenix Open because he had great memories of the tournament. He said he did it on Saturday because “it made the most sense” but he probably wanted to avoid the distraction of a final round as well.)

Miller was never afraid to call it like he saw it, which is precisely the reason why he was the best. Oh sure, it hacked off the players he was covering because golf was so used to nothing but glowing comments from the announcers (which, for the most part, is still the case).

There were lots of terms Miller used that we had never heard before — “chunk-and-run” “green light special” for example — but it was one word that Miller wasn’t afraid to use that separated him from everyone else — “choke.”

Nobody, especially in golf, had ever used that term before. But Miller wasn’t afraid to say it if he thought it applied. He always thought it’s what separated the truly great players in the game.

Miller, 71, only got the job with NBC in 1990 because Lee Trevino left to go to the Senior Tour. He will be replaced (by Paul Azinger) but it won’t be the same.

Good grief, the guy looked good in a baseball uniform.

Just my opinion — and I say this in as manly a way as I can — but no one could wear a uni like Lou Brock.

But Frank Robinson, who died at 83 Thursday after a long illness, is right there.

He doesn’t get credit for it. He’s sort of taken for granted.

But that’s because, like the rest of the baseball world, you aren’t looking hard enough.

Robinson has got to be one of the Top 20 baseball players of all time. You can make an argument about Top 10, but when you start forming your Top 10 lineup, he probably never crosses your mind. Probably doesn’t cross your mind when you’re even thinking of the Top 20.

Take a look at his numbers though. You’d want him on any team you’d ever suit up with.

Mercy, how both quietly and loudly efficient he was. A guy who played hard and let what he did on the field speak for itself.

How would you have liked to have been the GM of the Cincinnati Reds in 1966? That’s the year Robinson led the Baltimore Orioles to a World Series victory and won both the Triple Crown and the National League MVP award. In 1965, he’d played for the Reds, the team he’d been NL MVP for in 1961 or thereabouts. The team who’d traded him after the 1965 season.

Oops.

The Milwaukee Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966. Too late to grab the baseball hart of a little boy who was growing up in South Carolina was already 7. Before the Braves moved in. Baltimore was the closest team to Route 1, Lake View. I was hooked. We already had Brooks Robinson, and now we had Frank. Must be his brother!

Kids won’t believe it now, but Lordy Lord the Orioles were good. Winningest team in baseball, 1960-80. Look it up.

And look up how good Frank Robinson was, God rest his soul. And no, he did not especially shine, haberdashery-wise, in the almost-all orange uniforms of the Cleveland Indians when he was named player-manager for the 1975 season and hit a home run — on Opening Day.

But he was such a stud that he made even bad uniforms look good. Or at least semi-good.

Please appreciate what a good player and baseball guy — and what a professional — he was.

-30-