When They Broke Up Old Gang of Miller’s, They Broke Mold

The old order changes, and, often, it is followed by disorder. For the world champion Baltimore Orioles of 1983, order came in the form of five starting pitchers named Scott McGregor, Mike Flanagan, Mike Boddicker, Dennis Martinez and Storm Davis. They were the foundation of the last phase of the Orioles’ 25-year era.

Baseball has seen plenty of better pitchers. None will make the Hall of Fame. But they were special. And, now, they are missed. With the release of McGregor last week, only Boddicker is left in Baltimore. He has asked to go. The Orioles will almost surely oblige.

Many remember them, none better than Ray Miller, their pitching coach in Baltimore’s better days. They were all the Rabbit’s kids. Miller inherited Jim Palmer--or rather, the one 20-win season he had left. But McGregor, Flanagan and Martinez he groomed from the minor leagues on up, rising with them. They all hit the big time together, within about a year. Boddicker and Davis pitched better in the majors, under his eye, than they ever had in the minors. Miller’s time in Baltimore was theirs, too--from 1978 to 1985.

Three of them won 20 games. Martinez led the league in wins. And Davis looked for a while as if he’d be the best of all. No one but Miller ever had a gentle enough touch to get a winning year out of Davis’ perishable psyche.

“You’re not supposed to have favorites,” Miller said, “but Flanagan was mine. He was everything I would want in a pitcher. A winner, but quiet. Determined, but such a witty person. He said so little, but when he did, you’d stop, think about it, and you’d just be crying it was so funny and wise. What a pleasant guy to be around.”

Just as Palmer was the linchpin of his period--the man Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar and Pat Dobson looked up to--so Flanagan set the tone for his group. When he won the Cy Young Award, they won the pennant. When he came back and went 12-4 with a huge knee brace after doctors said he’d be lost for the year, they won the World Series. Iron Mike even earned the right to needle Palmer as spokesman for the youngsters.

“Palmer was an eccentric thoroughbred and they enjoyed that,” Miller said.

To compensate for Palmer’s chronic late-career undependability, Flanagan offered his Clydesdale’s fortitude. Into Gentleman Jim’s esoteric theories, Flanagan would stick a respectful sardonic pin, like John Belushi critiquing Martin Mull.

Now, after all the comebacks from injury, Flanagan is winning again for a contender in Toronto. “He’s the wise old head here,” says Blue Jays staffmate John Cerutti.

While Flanagan was Miller’s beau ideal in temperament, McGregor was his favorite to watch. “The consummate pitcher--pinpoint control, total belief in himself. I’ll never forget he won the last game of the World Series--a shutout--and only threw one curve all day. He was economy. . . . I’ve only had 40 complete games pitched for me in less than 100 pitches--that’s the perfect game to me. And Scotty had 16 of them.”

Mechanics, then and especially in recent years, were McGregor’s bugaboo. His across-the-body southpaw delivery was as unorthodox as any of his time, but crucial to his deception. His fastball looked like a pickoff gone wrong. “A flipper,” other players called him. Miller had a system to check where McGregor’s front foot landed, pacing off the spot using his own big feet. “Even Scotty didn’t know that,” he said.

Boddicker was also a joy to Miller. “An even better fielder than Palmer and utterly fearless. If there were men on second and third, first base open and the other team’s slugger up, figuring he’d never get a fastball to hit, Mike would get him on three straight called fastballs. Bod knew he had to pitch backwards (contradicting expectations) and aggressively.”

That led to Boddicker’s biggest problems as his effectiveness slid: the second guess from managers and coaches. “When you question Boddicker, you destroy him,” said Miller. “He has to have complete confidence in what he’s throwing or he can’t execute it.”

Fans love a puzzle player as much as coaches hate them. Miller had two pips in Davis and Martinez. In retrospect, he may have done remarkably well with them--certainly better than Orioles coaches who came after him. “I’ve always liked Stormy,” said Miller, who’s forgiven Davis for some bitter criticisms when Miller left Baltimore. “But you’ve got to know how to handle him. Anybody who screams at him will lose him.” Exhibit A: Larry Bowa in San Diego last year. Now, with a philosophical manager in Oakland’s Tony La Russa, Davis is doing somewhat better.

Martinez was a harder problem. “An enigma for me,” Miller said. “He’d win 13, 14, 15, 16 (six times) and be called a disappointment. ‘When is he going to be good?’ “Miller decided to take what he could get--a lot of decent innings. Then, for a couple of years, Martinez battled alcoholism. “He came back from rehabilitation much more reserved, without the fire,” said Miller. “He wasn’t the same pitcher.”

Now, in Montreal, Martinez at 32 threatens to be better than ever. He led the NL in winning percentage last year. “He’s charged up, enthusiastic on the mound, like he used to be,” Miller says. “He sure beats us”--i.e., the Pittsburgh Pirates, whose young pitchers are thriving under Miller’s coaching.

Five years ago, Rabbit and his bunch were the toast of baseball with a 1.10 team ERA in the ’83 postseason--that’s 10 earned runs in nine games, including three shutouts. Can the franchise that has just lost 21 straight games to begin a season even remember that such days, and such pitching, really existed?

Like his pitchers, Miller has been bounced around by baseball the past three years; the game has tried to push him down, make him question himself and his ideas. In Minneapolis, as manager for much of 1985 and 1986, he clashed with a couple of entrenched but less than respected old-timers--one in the front office, another in the press--and lost the power struggle. However, his best friend in the organization, Andy MacPhail, took over the team later and followed many of the directions they’d both seen.

When the Twins won the 1987 World Series, Miller wasn’t there in person, sharing in the credit, “but in my own mind I was.”

Flanagan in Toronto, Martinez in Montreal, Davis in Oakland and Miller in Pittsburgh all smell a pennant in the air again. Even with Boddicker, the Orioles won’t be center stage in October again soon, but some of the old Birds still think they’ll get back, even this year. Their roles are different and, in most cases, smaller, but they’re back in the hunt, the game still afoot.

“They had one thing in common,” says Miller. “They were all quality guys.”

Quality survives. And revives.