Page 203 - 1975 BoSox

196 ’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL
perfect. I took more hits away from him. He’d be all over me from the catcher’s position when I came up to bat. I’d just step out and say ‘Are you done yet?’”
After the 1973 season Miller married teammate Carlton Fisk’s sister Janet Marie, whom he had met while the two players were teammates in Pawtucket in 1970. ey had a son, Joshua.
In 1974 Miller played 77 games in center eld, while Juan Beniquez, the previous season’s Minor League Player of the Year, played in 91. Miller again batted .261, and lost playing time in center eld when Fred Lynn was called up in September.
At the end of the season the BoSox Club, the Red Sox’ booster group, named Miller its “Man of the Year,” citing his visits to hospitalized children in the Boston area. Miller said his parents’ experience losing a son to leukemia was an underlying factor in his willingness to join in the Red Sox charity work with the Jimmy Fund, among others. “It’s something you do as a player,” he said. “ ey would ask us to go to Children’s Hospital to meet with some kids and I’d say sure. It was easy for me. inking about my brother, we didn’t really talk about it, but that death really changed my parents.”
Miller said he thought he would be the leado hitter in 1975, but manager Darrell Johnson chose to go with Beniquez, so that he could get Fred Lynn into the lineup on a regular basis. Jim Rice was the DH for most of the rst half, then took over the left- eld slot. Miller played in 77 games, mostly when one of the other out elder struggled or when someone got hurt.
“I had been groomed by Johnny Pesky to hit the ball on the ground, get on base, so I had to change my swing a lot to be a contact hitter,” Miller said. “ e rest is history, and Freddy never came out of the lineup.”
With the emergence of Lynn and Rice in center and left, and with Dwight Evans solidifying his job in right eld, Miller’s starts dwindled. Lynn posted numbers (21 homers, 105 RBIs, and a .331 average) that led to his becoming baseball’s rst Most Valuable Player award and Rookie of the Year in the same
season. Rice was becoming one of the game’s most feared sluggers with 22 home runs, 102 RBIs, and a .309 average.
Despite Boston’s remarkable charge to the pennant and World Series 1975, Miller recalled it as “the ab- solute worst year I ever had.” He said, “Fred (Lynn) played all the time, Jim Rice played all the time. If it hadn’t been for the World Series, it would have been really bad for me that year, mentally and as a player.”
Still, there were some bright spots for Miller. On April 12 he pinch-ran in the 13th inning and scored on a Doug Gri n single to beat Baltimore, 3-2. On June 4, again as pinch-runner, he scored the game-winner on a single by Rick Burleson as the Red Sox rallied from a three-run de cit to score four runs in the ninth and beat Chicago at Fenway Park, 7-6.
Miller had two at-bats in the World Series in pinch- hitting roles against the Reds, and recalled one at-bat in Cincinnati where he thought he had a hit with a ball up the middle. “As I was running to rst base I looked up and Joe Morgan was standing there. ey werepitchingmeawayandplayingmeaway,”hesaid. “ ey had done their scouting but I hadn’t played much, so I don’t know how they scouted me.”
“Even as exciting as that World Series was, it was terrible because it rained so much,” Miller said. “We didn’t have any time to go out and practice, just to go out in the out eld and have some fun shagging ies and taking batting practice. It was terrible.” He added wryly that his fondest memory of the World Series was playing cards during all the rain delays.
In 1976, because of injuries to Lynn, Miller played in 105 games and hit .283, his best batting average with the Red Sox. He played all three out eld positions, and was 5-for-17 as a pinch-hitter.
e 1977 season was the nal year of Miller’s rst stint with the Red Sox. He broke his left thumb when he was hit by a pitch thrown by Seattle’s John Montague, and was on the disabled list from May 3 to May 30. He hit .254 and made only one error in 79 games in the out eld.