DAYTON - Baseball journeyman Corky Miller has spent most of his career on the cusp of the big leagues and is in his first year as a coach for the Dayton Dragons, the Reds' Single-A affiliate, after 17 years mostly spent in the minor leagues.
Miller had stints with several major league organizations including the Reds, Twins, Braves, Red Sox and White Sox during his playing career. However, he would spend most of his playing career catching for the Reds’ Triple-A affiliate, the Louisville Bats.
Miller became an undrafted free agent with the Reds organization in 1998, and his major league debut with the Reds would follow in 2001. He spent most of his career being shuffled around the major and minor leagues, and the Louisville Bats would become the team that most resembled a home for Miller. At one point he thought he could be an everyday player in the major leagues, but for the sincere Miller, “It was just playing” baseball.
“Getting down there with all those fans was something I enjoyed anyways,” Miller said. “Everyone wants more time and money. At the end of the day, it was mostly about playing baseball and being happy I still had a job.”
One moment that exemplified Miller’s determination to stay on the field was during a playoff run for the Bats. He was playing with the Reds, but Miller had not seen any game action in about 2 weeks. Though the pay is much higher in the majors and the accommodations for traveling are better, Miller made the unlikely decision to ask to be sent back down when there was a spot to fill on the Bats playoff roster.
Miller said, “I said, ‘I’ll go down. I want to play, and I want to play in the playoffs with this Louisville team. I’m not doing anything up here.’”
Miller cherishes that he was exposed to a variety of coaching philosophies over the course of his playing career, including former Braves manger Bobby Cox, who is the fourth all-time leader in wins as a major league manager.
“You look back and you’re like, ‘That is a lot of information, and a lot of different styles of managing I got to see,”’ Miller said. “By no means am I going to follow one guy, but I’ve used a lot of different things that I’ve learned from them.”
As a catcher, Miller had the opportunity to advise pitchers he caught for. Now he dispenses advise to players he coaches for the Dragons and catchers he develops throughout the Reds’ system. Dragons catcher Garrett Boulware, 22, has experienced Miller’s role as an advisor firsthand.
“He always has something that he can show you or help you with. If something he is showing you is not working, he can show you something else that might work,” said Boulware, a catcher in his first full season at the professional level who won a title at short-season rookie ball last year. “He has helped me in all aspects of the game.”
Miller’s lengthy career has included catching and advising other players, but pitching was something he always wanted to attempt.
“I always wanted to pitch, but I remember when I was about 10 years old, I walked four guys, and my dad pulled me out of the game,” Miller said. “I thought, ‘I’ll never pitch again.’”
Miller would get to take the mound several times in the minors, including a hitless inning for the Bats in 2012 with the rare knuckleball as his primary pitch.
“Being a catcher when you’re stuck back there, a lot of times you want to do something else. It was fun actually getting out there to pitch,” Miller said.
Miller throws perfect inning (Video)
Catching can be one of the grittier positions in baseball proven by plays at the plate that can result in the occasional vicious collision. Miller demonstrated grit in high school and junior college by crowding the plate and getting plucked with pitches.
“Coming up through high school and junior college, I think I got hit 25 times a year those two years,” Miller recalled.
The trend continued in Miller’s collegiate years at Nevada, where he set the school’s single season hit by pitch record at 28 in 1998.
After his years of service for the Bats organization, Miller’s No. 8 jersey was the first number to be retired by the team. In Miller’s eyes, this solidified the reverence the organization had for him.
“You could try to trick yourself in saying, ‘They love me there, and everybody liked me,’” Miller said. “I had a good career there, but until someone steps up and does that for you, that is some validation to what you meant to that town and team."
