It’s the Moment of Truth for Miller : Now That Standout Catcher Rene Lopez Is Lost for the Season, Harbor Is Turning to Left Fielder for Leadership in Regional

Joey Miller has suffered so many injuries that his Harbor College baseball teammates have threatened to give him a Band-Aid award. Miller, a sophomore left fielder, was a medical redshirt last year because of injuries unrelated to those that have caused him to play in pain most of this season.

A couple of games into the 1991 season, Miller fractured his left kneecap and injured his left shoulder in a motorcycle accident. His leg was in a splint for two months and his shoulder was scraped and bruised so badly that scars remain.

This season Miller hurt his back taking batting practice and missed seven games after pulling a hamstring while running the bases.

The injuries, however, have had little effect on his play. The 20-year-old San Pedro High graduate is the Seahawks’ fastest runner and most powerful hitter. Miller, who is a muscular 6-foot-2 and 190 pounds, has run a 6.3-second 60-yard dash, according to Harbor Coach Tony Bloomfield. Last week he was named to the All-Southern California Athletic Conference first team.

“I’m pretty confident when I’m running,” said Miller, who has a black belt in taekwondo. “I feel no one can catch me. I just put my head down, look in and run.”

Miller leads the team in stolen bases (34 steals in 36 attempts) and his .388 batting average is second to catcher Rene Lopez, who was lost for the season last week after injuring his left knee in the regional playoffs.

Harbor (35-10) will meet East Los Angeles College (28-14) today at 11 a.m. in the first game of the double-elimination four-team Southern California Regional final at Cerritos College. The tournament, which also features Cuesta (22-15) and Cerritos (29-8-1), continues Saturday with the final scheduled at 11 a.m. Sunday.

Miller will replace Lopez as Harbor’s cleanup batter. He has 47 hits, has driven in 42 runs and scored 37. In last week’s three-game regional series against Fullerton College, Miller had four hits, drove in five runs and had three stolen bases.

He says watching Lopez get hurt in last Friday’s game was tough. It brought back memories of last year’s motorcycle accident in which Lopez was a passenger. Miller, who acknowledges that he was speeding, lost control of the vehicle after hitting a bump and slammed into a car before sliding for several yards.

“Out of any time the whole season, even when I was hurt, I was upset the most after Friday’s game,” Miller said. “There’s nothing I can say to him. I just said, ‘I’m there if you need me.’ ”

Although replacing Lopez’s .409 batting average will be difficult, Bloomfield is counting on Miller to help lead the Seahawks to the state championship tournament at the Riverside Sports Complex on May 22-24.

“He’s definitely the strongest kid on the team,” Bloomfield said. “He’s got major power. The ball just jumps off his bat.”

Miller ran track and played football and baseball at San Pedro but earned little recognition. As a freshman on Harbor’s 1990 state champion baseball team, Miller played sporadically, although he stole 24 bases in 25 attempts.

“I have so much more knowledge the game now than when I was a freshman,” Miller said. “I think now I have an edge over a lot of guys. I’ve never played this good. I’ve never swung the bat like this.”

Bloomfield says Miller has improved drastically in his two seasons with the Seahawks.

“I recruited him because of his speed and his body,” he said. “But he was real raw out of high school. He has worked harder than any kid we’ve had here to get where he is.”

Miller was drafted by the Houston Astros after his freshman season at Harbor. He was a late-round pick, according to Doug Deutsch, a former Astro scout now with the Kansas City Royals.

“He was not ready in our opinion, but we had interest,” Deutsch said. “He had good, physical size, good arm strength and very good speed. He had the makings. The tools we looked for were all there.”

Said Miller: “Mentally I know I wasn’t ready to play when I got drafted after my freshman year. Maybe I wasn’t ready physically either.”

Deutsch says the injuries Miller sustained in last year’s accident will not hurt his chances of a pro career. Teams hold a player’s rights for only one year, so Miller is available for the June draft.

“I don’t see any lingering effects from it,” Deutsch said. “He’s playing well. If he’s healthy and back from that and can still run and throw the way he did, he’s got a future.”

Miller, a business administration major who already has an associate of arts degree, has signed to play at Texas Tech next season. He will go to school unless he’s an early pick in the draft.

He says Pepperdine and Lewis & Clark State in Idaho also recruited him, but he liked Texas Tech’s scenic campus.

“I took a recruiting trip there and it was so beautiful,” Miller said. “I really liked it right away.”

Miller says he will continue his hard-nosed style of play but will stay away from motorcycles.

“It’s amazing that I did recover,” he said. “I got lucky. I’m staying off of them forever. No way will I ride one again. No way.”