There is a lot to say about
this card. First of all it is the third card in a row that represents the subject's final Topps card as a player. Bob Miller had at this point had a
pretty long run that began in the Fifties and, especially recently, had covered
a whole bunch of teams. Secondly, this is a damn ugly card, which we have
happily been without for a long time. Nothing against Mr. Miller, who in
younger years was a good looking guy, but he is all of 33 years old at the
oldest (see below) in this photo and he looks 20 years older. Plus this must be
about the nastiest air-brush job in the set, with Bob’s Pirates uniform being
compromised into a Mets one. The neck line is horrific and the hat looks like a
pile of atomic waste. Third, the newest this card is is from ’72 and it may
even be much earlier because the background is very Forbes Field-ish and that
park closed in ’70. So it’s probably a spring training shot. Lastly, and
best-ly (I know that’s not even a hyphenated word but you get the drift) it has
Roberto Clemente in the background, which is awfully nice and pulls the card
back to respectability. Don Leppert appears to be there also over Bob’s right
shoulder, but I’m no good with the rest of those guys. ’73 was an all too-typical
year for Bob in the Seventies: lots of traveling conjoined with some pretty
good pitching. He actually went through nearly all of spring training with Pittsburgh, only to get
released right at the end of it. Immediately picked up by the Padres he got off
to a pretty good start in relief until some messy outings in May pushed up his
ERA. Unfortunately, too, in not one of the San Diego games in which he pitched did the
team record a win. So after 18 games he was placed on waivers from which he was again snatched pretty quickly, this time by Detroit. Bob won two of his first three games
with the Tigers, threw generally good ball, and added a save through late
September. He was then sold to NY for a very short stretch drive, especially
for him since he only threw one inning. So Topps really didn’t get much of an
opportunity to not airbrush Bob. But
it would be nice if they did a better job.
Bob Miller grew up in St. Louis where at Beaumont High School
he went 22-1 during his career and 12-0 as a senior. He also led his team to
the American Legion national championship and in ’57 was signed as a bonus baby
by St. Louis
out of high school. Like most players signed under that umbrella Bob rarely
played his first year and after the rule associated with those kinds of
signings was changed in ’58 he went to the minors. After beginning the year in
Triple A with a bit of a fat ERA he moved to Double A where he went 8-11 with a
3.54 ERA in the rotation. The next year he pretty much matched those numbers in
Triple A – 8-12 with a 3.50 ERA – before he returned to St. Louis that August, winning his first game
in his first start. He threw well the rest of the way but then had an
injury-filled ’60 during which he missed most of the middle part of the season
and did some Double A rehab time. In ’61 he moved to a reserve role and saw a spike in his ERA – but everybody did that year – and recorded his first three
saves. After that season he was one of the early round picks by the new Mets in
the expansion draft.
Miller spent most of the ’62
season in the NY rotation but probably wished he didn’t. He lost his first 12
games and didn’t put up his first win of the season until late September. Mercifully
he was traded after the season to LA for Larry Burright and Tim Harkness, two
infielders. Bob’s timing was pretty good and his first year he worked as a
swing guy for the Series winners, getting a save in his relief work. After
being shut out of any post-season work he was pretty much strictly a reliever
the next few seasons. In ’64 he led the NL with his 74 appearances and recorded
nine saves. He hit that save total again in ’65 and then put up five in ’66.
Both those years he threw shutout ball in the Series. In ’67 the Dodgers did a
fast fade and Bob went right with them as both his record and his ERA
deteriorated and he was shut out in the saves department. In ’68 he went to Minnesota in a big trade
with Johnny Roseboro and Ron Perranoski for Mudcat Grant and Zoilo Versalles.
With the Twins Bob basically did set-up work for Perranoski and over the next
two years garnered five saves for himself. In ’69 he added some spot starts
which bumped up his innings and returned to the post-season. Then with the
beginning of the Seventies came the real onset of his travels. Three years
during that decade he played for three teams, beginning in ’70 when prior to
the start of the season he was involved in another big trade, going to Cleveland with Dean
Chance, Graig Nettles, and Ted Uhlaender for Luis Tiant and Stan Williams. It
wasn’t a great year for Bob: as a swing guy for The Tribe, a starter for the
White Sox (he went there in June for Buddy Bradford), and a reliever for the
Cubs (a sale in September), his work was below par and his ERA escalated quite
a bit. But in ’71 after a lousy start for the Cubbies he went to San Diego after being
released in May and did some excellent work in the pen, recording seven saves
with his miniscule ERA. He continued that after an August trade to Pittsburgh for Ed Acosta
and Johnny Jeter. After posting three saves for the Pirates he again got some
post-season work, winning another ring. In ’72 he stayed put for a change,
adding another three saves, before he did the three team thing again in ’73. In
’74 he finished his MLB time with pen work for the Mets, going 2-2 with a 3.58
ERA and a couple saves in 58 games. Bob finished with a record of 69-81 with a
3.37 ERA, seven complete games, and 51 saves. In his post-season work he was
0-2 with a 3.07 ERA in nine games.
In ’75 Miller returned to the
Padres as a player/coach for the team’s Triple A Hawaii franchise. He went 0-1
with three saves in his 15 games and the following year got a straight-up
manager gig, going 81-54 for the team’s Double A franchise. In ’77 he was named
pitching coach of the new Toronto Blue Jays – so he got a card that year – and
retained that role through the ’79 season. After a year off in ’80 he joined
the Giants as a minor league pitching instructor from ’81 to ’84 and then
returned to The Show with an ’85 stint in San
Francisco. After the whole staff was canned following
a disappointing season Bob became a scout for the club. He was still doing that
when he was killed in a car accident outside San Diego in August of ’93. He was 54.
Bob has zero room for star
bullets, mostly because of his travels in the Seventies. Sixteen different
managers, huh? Dare I name them? Why not:
Fred Hutchinson (’57
Cards); Don Gutteridge (’70 White Sox);
Solly Hemus (’59 -’61
Cards); Leo Durocher (’70
–’71 Cubs);
Johnny Keane (’61
Cards); Preston Gomez (’71 Padres);
Casey Stengel (’62 Mets); Danny
Murtaugh (’71 Pirates);
Walt Alston (’63 -’67
Dodgers); Bill Virdon (’72 Pirates);
Cal Ermer (’68 Twins); Don
Zimmer (’73 Padres);
Billy Martin (’69 Twins and
’73 Tigers); Joe Schultz
(’73 Tigers);
Al Dark (’70 Indians); Yogi Berra (’73 –’74 Mets).
Bob also famously roomed with
another Bob Miller on the ’62 Mets which was memorialized by a Topps card.
Bob played with everybody
apparently except this guy:
1. Miller and Lindy McDaniel
’57 and ’59 to ’61 Cardinals;
2. McDaniel and Celerino
Sanchez ’72 to ’73 Yankees.
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