Damian Miller

[Michael Trzinski]

Damian Donald Miller was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin and attended high school in nearby West Salem. Miller was an all-conference player in football, basketball, and baseball his senior year. Miller attended Viterbo College in La Crosse under Coach Ed Servais, whose nephew Scott Servais was an eleven-year veteran of major league play, and up until the end of the 2024 season was the manager of the Seattle Mariners. In three years at Viterbo, Miller set school career records with 29 doubles, 87 RBIs, and a .419 batting average. After his junior year, Miller was tabbed in the 20th round of the 1990 MLB Amateur Draft by the Minnesota Twins.

Miller took a Crash Davis-type route to the bigs, playing eight seasons before getting ‘The Call,’ He finally made it to Minnesota in Aug 1997, but in 25 games (18 starts) performed well, slashing .273/.282/.379 across 66 at-bats. After the season, Miller was chosen by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 1997 expansion draft.

After spending a few weeks at Triple-A Tucson—where he hit .349 across 63 at-bats—Miller was called up to the big club and would spend most of the next five years as Catcher1 for the D-Backs, appearing in 467 games and slashing .269/.336/.437 with 48 HRs. He earned his only All-Star game nod in 2002 and went 2-for-3 with a pair of doubles and an RBI in the infamous 7-7 tie at Miller Park. After the season, Miller was traded to the Chicago Cubs. Miller hit a career-low of .233 for the Cubs and went a combined 3-for-21 in the NLDS against Atlanta and NLCS loss against Florida. In December, Miller was traded to the Oakland Athletics.

Miller hit .272 in 2004 with the A’s and had career-highs with 108 hits, 25 doubles, and 58 RBIs. The backstop became a free agent and signed a reported three-year, $8.75 million deal with the Brewers.

Miller was the main catcher his first two years with Milwaukee and appeared in a combined 215 games and played solidly on defense with a fielding percentage of .997 and threw out runners at an above-average rate of 31.8%.

In what would be his final year in baseball, Miller backed up Johnny Estrada in 2007 and only played in 58 games, slashing .237/.296/.348 across 186 at-bats. In June, Miller hit a three-run, walk-off HR on ‘La Crosse Day’ in a 6-3 win over the Houston Astros. On July 2, Miller went 4-for-5 with two home runs and seven RBIs.

Miller drew interest from the Yankees and the Padres before the 2008 season but chose instead to retire in May.

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