Miller: "I just wanted a job where I could eat french fries"

Miller received the 2010 Ford C. Frick Award on Sunday.

Jon Miller, God bless him. You gotta love the guy.

In a sport where chicks dig the dudes with chiseled chins and bulging biceps, Miller stands out as — well, not one of those guys.

On Sunday afternoon, the rotund and balding announcer who grew up in Hayward listening to Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons call games, accepted the 2010 Ford C. Frick Award in Cooperstown.

Miller, 58, got his start in 1974 as an Oakland A’s announcer and eventually worked for the Texas Rangers and Baltimore Orioles. In 1997 he came home, becoming the voice of the Giants.

When he was a kid, Miller’s father took him to a baseball game at Candlestick Park, where he spent more time looking into the announcers’ booth through his binoculars than watching the action on the field.

During his acceptance speech on Sunday, Miller, who accepted his award on the same day that former outfielder Andre Dawson, former manager Whitey Herzog and ex-umpire Doug Harvey became the newest members of the Hall of Fame, did what he does best: He delighted the crowd.

“As a 10-year-old,” Miller explained, “I sat there and I thought, ‘That is the life for me’…I just wanted a job where I could eat french fries while working.”

Thank goodness for Giants fans, Miller didn’t set his sights on a career at Burger King.