Jon Miller: Willie Mays 'was a genius of the game'

Few people are better qualified to talk about Willie Mays than Jon Miller. Miller was the man to break the news of Mays' death during the Giants' game against the Cubs Tuesday night.

Miller joined the Morning Roast Thursday morning, ahead of the Giants' historic game at Rickwood Field with the St. Louis Cardinals in Birmingham, Alabama. It's the field where Willie Mays began his career as a professional, playing on the weekends while he was still in school

The legendary broadcaster waxed poetic for more than a half hour on Mays. He told two stories of catches Mays made in which he got knocked out, but held onto the ball, and imbued history over the airwaves.

"He was always doing something and always sort of inventing something," Miller said. "I think he was a genius of the game and people do make a mistake when they say that Willie was just a natural player. I think he had natural God-given abilities. There's no question. But he was a great student of the game and and for me, a genius of the game to where he was just improvising things as the game would go along.

"So I think that for Willie, he was a great player, but he was also a guy who was so much more than that. So that's why we miss him and why it's been such a blessing to have been a Giants fan all this time because it was the team of Willie Mays and why they still have New York Giants fans. People in New York who still aren't Giants fans to this day. And when you ask them, it was because of Willie Mays. It was the team of Willie Mays."

Listen to Miller's full interview above. It's worth the listen.