Keith Mills Semi-Retires From WBAL

Keith Mills speaks at his semi-retirement party last week. He is wearing a custom Orioles jersey given to him by the team. Credit: Bill Vanko

Keith Mills will have you know he isn't retiring. His alarm clock, however, is.

On Friday, Mills gave his last morning sports reports on WBAL NewsRadio 1090 and FM 101.5, 98 Rock and WBAL-TV 11, capping 40 years as an institution in Baltimore sports journalism.

The 62-year-old isn't venturing far from TV Hill, however. He'll have a role in Ravens game day coverage and he will take on a new role as a sideline reporter for Navy football games.

Mills is a Maryland man through and through. He is a fountain of knowledge about Baltimore sports, from high school to the professional leagues, and has been a fixture of Baltimore sports media since the 1970s.

He grew up in Brooklyn Park, graduated from Brooklyn Park High School and has lived in Linthicum for years. Television runs in his blood. His father, George Mills, worked behind the camera for WJZ-TV, broadcasting the first Baltimore Colts game in 1954 and assisting in Baltimore Orioles broadcasts for 25 years. George Mills died in 2017.

As his father worked the camera behind home plate at Memorial Stadium, Mills sat in the press box. It was there he caught the bug, he told Brett Hollander.

Mills learned at the feet of legendary John Steadman at the Baltimore News-American and then then began his television career in 1979. He joined his father at WJZ as a sports producer. He had no intention of being on camera, but Al Sanders, the iconic anchor, saw something in him.

"So Al pulled me in one day and goes 'Hey, little Millsy, it’s time.' Like, 'Time for what?'" Mills said.

"It’s time for you to go on the air," Sanders told him.

Mills protested.

"Doesn’t matter," Mills said Sanders told him. "The time has come. You have things to say. You need to say it."

Sanders talked a producer into sending him out on packages. The first was a Maryland football game against the University of Miami, the first football game at Memorial Stadium since the Colts were spirited away from Baltimore.

"I knew the process on how to put it together," Mills said. Sanders "walked me through the microphone process and how to put it together, and he was the master."

In 1987, Mills caught WMAR-TV's eye, and he became a sports reporter and sports executive producer for the station. That's where he struck up a lifelong friendship and a longtime on-air partnership with Scott Garceau. Garceau gave Mills an outlet to cover high school sports, which was a longtime passion for him.

"We ended up being the closest of friends," Mills said. "I look at him as part-time father, part-time brother, part time mentor, but one of the greatest friends and greatest people I’ve ever met," Mills said.

Mills reported sports there for nearly 20 years before he suffered a public and painful fall from grace. Mills was arrested and subsequently pleaded guilty in 2006 to stealing prescription painkillers. Mills had been taking pain medications for back and ankle injuries he had suffered as a teen, and the regimen became an addiction that had already led him to an arrest and a trip to rehab. But this time, WMAR's parent company, Scripps-Howard, was less forgiving.

Mills wasn't sure if he would work in broadcasting again and started making backup plans. Then, as that year's Preakness Stakes neared, Mills' phone rang. It was Mark Miller, who was then WBAL's news director. Miller, former Vice President Jeff Beauchamp and former General Manager Ed Kiernan put their faith in Mills, and he said he will never forget that.

"I'll never be able to thank them adequately," Mills said.

A few months after WBAL brought him on as a freelancer, he was put on the payroll. Soon, WBAL-TV 11 came calling, as well. Eventually, he said, he felt welcome among listeners and viewers, many of whom will stop to say hello when they see him at M&T Bank Stadium or Pimlico Race Course.

"It wasn’t until I got established here and I started doing some TV," Mills said. "It was humbling, mind-boggling to me, the outreach of this station.”

Mills gives back some of that love to the community, speaking regularly to schools and other groups about opioid addiction.

In the past week, many voices from Mills' past have called in to wish him well as he enters semiretirement.

On Wednesday, Keith was surprised by former University of Maryland star Keith Booth:

On Thursday, Keith got a call from Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr.:

On Friday, Scott Garceau called in: