You never know when you’re going to have a Minnesota Twins moment.
Once again I was watching You Tube when a Sept. 6, 1986, game between the Twins and Boston Red Sox popped up in my feed.
I settled in to watch it and was disappointed to see the Twins suffer a 3-2 walk-off loss in Game 2 of that series after Frank Viola and the rest of the guys were blown out 12-2 by the Sox in Game 1.
They would be swept in Boston, drop two more against the Royals and by about the middle of the month, Twins manager Ray Miller was out of a job.
Miller replaced former manager Billy Gardner after 62 games in 1985, then was handed the reins for the following season.
Miller didn’t have much of a pedigree as a manager, but his reputation as a pitching coach was off the charts, largely because of what he had accomplished with the Baltimore Orioles and their rotation, including recent Cy Young awards for Mike Flanagan and Steve Stone.
Miller, it turns out, hadn’t exactly endeared himself to Twins players, put his foot in his mouth in Boston and appeared to be in denial about his role with the Twins, according to newspaper reports at the time.
The Minneapolis Star and Tribune reported his firing on Sept. 13, 1986.
“Because Miller had been a successful pitching coach with Baltimore from 1978 until coming to the Twins, it was expected his presence would help.
“That assumption irked him.
“I don’t know what I was hired to do,” Miller said. “I must have been hired to be a god. Apparently, the organization thought that the pitching they had would be enough and all it would take would be a guru to make them great.”
Boston media also jumped all over Miller after he talked up the Toronto Blue Jays as a much better team than the Red Sox.
The offending quote:
“Now, if they (Toronto) go head to head with Boston, I think they’ll eat them up, especially with all the pressure on Boston with everyone saying they’re going to choke.”
It didn’t take long for Boston reporters to bounce that quote off Red Sox players for reaction.
First baseman Bill Buckner told the Boston Herald: “I don’t (give) much consideration (to) a guy that’s about to get fired. He’s having trouble evaluating his own team, let alone someone else’s.”
Miller finally was ash-canned, and then Twins fans learned that some players were glad to see him go.
Another offending Miller quote:
“Miller had said (Mickey) Hatcher was a ‘funny’ guy, a ‘good’ kid and was a good public relations man for the Twins, but ‘that isn’t necessarily the answer. You’ve got to have players.”
Utility player Hatcher didn’t care for that all.
“That’s very frustrating to me,” he said. “I liked Ray Miller. I thought he had a lot of great ideas for the club. He was a great person and a good manager. But this was like I was being pointed out again. It was like as long as Hatcher’s on the team, they aren’t going to win.”
Twins DH Roy Smalley took some parting shots as well.
“He didn’t have the 1927 Yankees to work with. But to say that we only had three or four hitters is …
“We had enough offense to win the American League West. Whether it’s right or wrong to knock the players is one thing. But don’t go all year not saying things and then do it when you’re fired; that really made me mad.”
Extra innings…
–Miller was replaced by Tom Kelly. Kelly finished the ’86 season with a 12-11 record. The next season, of course, he won the World Series.
–The Twins have taken their first steps to augment the team’s bullpen by sending a minor league prospect to the Tampa Bay Rays for Eric Orze, who pitched to a 3.02 ERA across 41-plus innings with 40 strikeouts this past season. Less encouragingly, he nearly walked 20 batters in 40 innings. It’s a start, I guess, but the Twins have a long way to go in this department.
Source: Newspapers.com