Who was the most important member of the 2004 Boston Red Sox?
That 2004 championship team was special for infinite reasons, and every one of them will be remembered in some way. Chief among them is Millar. Often, you'll hear of an athlete's positive influence in his locker room, but very rarely is that impact so obvious to the outside observer. Even rarer is the city that celebrates role players as much as the city of Boston.
To call Millar a role player, though, wouldn't be fair. He played in 150 games that year, batting .297 with 18 homers and 74 RBIs while batting in the heart of a powerful lineup. Still, you can't help but think that Millar's contributions were appreciated in Boston just a little more than they would have been elsewhere, partly because it's a city that's long embraced colorful characters.
Some of them included his teammates. Manny was often Manny, which for a while resulted in a love affair with the fans. Yet that ended rather sourly in the summer of 2008. Pedro Martinez would have been remembered fondly for his greatness alone, but his outgoing personality and dugout antics have him marked in Boston sports lore as a legend.
There was also Doug Mirabelli. Even though he never actually shouted "Dougie's goin deep!" while taking cuts in front of a full-length mirror, he did establish a cult following as Tim Wakefield's battery/soul mate. Damon was also equally as famous for his beard and hair as he was for his game, but, well, he threw the majority of his Boston ties out the window when he ditched town for the Yankees.
Yet that group from '04, however special it may be, was hardly the first instance of the city of Boston taking a liking to the guys who weren't afraid to be considered a little bit "out there."
That may be why a guy nicknamed "Spaceman" is still revered.
Bill Lee was one of the best lefties to don a Red Sox uniform, and he's also the only one to ever say this:
"I told [reporters] that I sprinkled marijuana on my organic buckwheat pancakes, and then when I ran my five miles to the ballpark, it made me impervious to the bus fumes. That's when [MLB commissioner] Bowie Kuhn took me off his Christmas list."
One of Lee's teammates was also memorable for his ability on the field, but it was the manner in which he worked that's become his lasting image. Luis Tiant won 122 games and posted a 3.36 ERA for the Red Sox, all while delivering pitches with his herky-jerk movements. Like Lee, Tiant was never afraid to speak his mind, and his competitive fire was obvious.
"If we lose today, it will be over my dead body," he once said. "They'll have to leave me face down on the mound."
Getting back to the nickname theme, is there any moniker better than Oil Can? Of course, that one belongs to none other than Mr. Dennis Ray Boyd, who's come to be known simply as Oil Can Boyd. His numbers in a Red Sox uniform were unremarkable (60-56, 4.15 ERA), but he's still a celebrity in New England. He once threatened to sue the Red Sox for not inviting him to spring training, and he's spent parts of the past two decades playing independent league ball throughout the area, including a stint with the Brockton Rox in 2005.
Boyd made headlines again last February, when he declared he wanted to make a comeback at age 49. That hasn't worked out, but there's no comeback necessary in terms of his prominence with Red Sox fans.
There were more, too. Rich Garces, with his 261 relief appearances for the Red Sox, had thousands of fans purchasing "El Guapo" T-shits. El guapo, in case you forgot, translated from Spanish to mean "the handsome one," and Garces was, well, uhh … not entirely handsome.
There was Rod Beck, too, whose two-plus year Red Sox career was instantly welcomed by a fan base that recognized him as a guy who didn't look like he would mind sitting down and having a beer with Bobby from the bleachers. As it turned out, the fans were right, as Beck spent the later part of his playing days living in a trailer outside his minor league team's stadium, inviting fans to spend some time with him and his mullet. When he passed away in 2007, there were plenty of sad folks in Boston.
As it is clear, Millar has some great company in the list of lovable Red Sox, and it's just as clear that he won't be the last to come through these parts. It's also impossible to list them all, but there's a guarantee that just about every time he shows up in Boston, a celebration will follow. When it comes to Red Sox fans, it's always a matter of once loved, always loved.
