University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Miller Enjoying Whirlwind Summer
September 18, 2006 | Baseball
Sept. 18, 2006
By Adam Lucas
DETROIT--Andrew Miller's life these days includes a lot of shrieking.
Not by him--he's not the shrieking type. But talking to him Sunday afternoon at Comerica Park, it became obvious that the magnitude of attention given to him has increased dramatically since the last time he took the mound for the Tar Heels.
Fifty minutes before gametime against fellow Tar Heel Brian Roberts and the Baltimore Orioles, Miller was standing in front of the home dugout. It was almost impossible hold a normal conversation because of the crush of Tigers fans assembled behind the dugout hunting for autographs, a baseball, or any scrap of their hometown team.
"Andrew!" they shouted. "An-drew!"
Just then, Comeback Player of the Year candidate Magglio Ordonez wandered up the steps to take a couple of batting practice cuts.
"Hey Maggliooooo!" the crowd screamed, briefly shifting their attention from the lanky rookie pitcher. But as soon as Ordonez was inside the cage, the focus on Miller returned.
"You get used to it," Miller said. "And you have to understand that if you start signing, you may never be able to stop."
Other players proved his point. As Curtis Granderson signed, the crowd around him grew even larger. After signing his name almost 100 times, he had to return to the clubhouse to prepare for the game. "Aw, come on Granderson," one exasperated fan said.
The crush of autograph seekers isn't the only thing that's changed for Miller over the past two months. He's gone from Chapel Hill to Omaha to Lakeland, Florida, to the heat of a division race with Detroit. After signing on August 4, the Tigers sent him to their rookie league team in Lakeland (where the crowd for his debut was 287), just two hours from his family's home in Gainesville.
There he was the only millionaire on a team full of players just scrapping to find a place in the organization. But he was still the same Miller, moving in with four teammates in a cramped apartment because he wanted to be a normal Lakeland player.
Normal Lakeland players, however, don't have a golden left arm that can couple fastballs in the mid-90s with a devastating slider. Less than three weeks later, the Tigers called him up to the majors, where he made his big league debut at Yankee Stadium. He's made a total of four appearances, with just one hiccup--a 3-walk performance in 0.2 innings on Sept. 8 against Minnesota--and three solid outings.
He was Carolina's unquestioned ace for most of his three years in Chapel Hill. His role has changed considerably in the majors.
"Basically I only pitch when we're way ahead or way behind," he said with a smile. That type of mop-up duty is something completely foreign to a player who has always been a standout every time he's put on a glove.
With the Tigers, he's just one of several talented young pitchers. At 21 years old, he's just three years younger than starter Jeremy Bonderman, who already has 96 career major league decisions, two years younger than 16-game winner Justin Verlander, and just six months younger than bullpen sensation Joel Zumaya, who has appeared in 57 games for the Tigers this year.
Zumaya and Miller had something else in common Sunday night. On one road trip per season, big league veterans choose the clothes for the team's rookies. For the Tigers, that trip was Sunday night, so Miller and Zumaya joined the squad's other first-year players in goofy outfits for the plane trip to Chicago. To maximize the embarrassing nature of the ritual, the team bus dropped them two blocks away from the squad's downtown hotel.
Miller has always had a unique sense of fashion, so the clothing changes weren't especially daunting to him. Some of the other lifestyle adjustments have been more dramatic. Many Tiger youngsters arrive by way of Toledo, the franchise's AAA affiliate. Since it's just a one-hour drive from Detroit, they're able to bring their cars when they are promoted.
Miller had no such luxury, so he's living in a downtown hotel and taking a cab to and from the ballpark every day. That means lots of room service, lots of free time, and a very different experience from college life, when any spare moments could be filled with a quick game of MVP '06 College Baseball on the PlayStation2.
Sunday, with the entire Carolina coaching staff making up part of the crowd of 37,464, he nearly made an appearance against the Orioles. With Baltimore holding an 8-6 lead, Miller was warming up in the eighth inning and appeared poised to pitch the ninth. But a Sean Casey 2-run homer tied the score and prompted Jim Leyland to send out closer Todd Jones for the ninth rather than the rookie. UNC assistant coach Jason Howell, a former pitcher in the Red Sox system, dubbed it an "AGI" on the stat sheet, for Almost Got In. The Tigers eventually lost the game 12-8 in 10 innings, cutting their lead in the American League Central to one game.
The team left for Chicago immediately after the game--travel is another big league difference, as every player's bag is packed for him rather than the do-it-yourself method of the college game--for an important three-game series with the White Sox. Given the extensive use of the Tiger bullpen on Sunday, Miller is likely to see action at some point at U.S. Cellular Field.
Less than 90 days ago, he was still wearing a Carolina uniform. Since then, he's been a top-10 draft pick, met Roger Clemens when he won the Clemens Award, pitched to Johnny Damon and Derek Jeter in Yankee Stadium, and walked down the streets of Chicago in embarrassing clothes while a bus full of major leaguers cheered him on.
"Yeah," Miller said, "I'd say it's been a fun summer."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. He is the coauthor of the official book of the 2005 championship season, Led By Their Dreams, and his book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about Going Home Again, click here.
