“Don’t let us win today.”
These famous five words were echoed throughout the Boston Red Sox clubhouse heading into Game 4 of the 2004 American League Championship Series, and were most notably coined by Kevin Millar in an interview with Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe.
What people forget is that Boston had to break an unwritten rule just to get the first basemen in a Red Sox uniform. After the 2002 season, the Florida Marlins sold Millar to the Chunichi Dragons in Japan, but the Red Sox blocked this deal with a waiver claim. The Marlins then had to repay the Dragons the money they had spent on him and the Red Sox sent the Marlins a similar amount of money.
Millar, at 31 years old, was now part of Boston.
He found his spot in the club house pretty quickly as he is known for his charismatic personality, along with his baseball talent.
His first year on the team he batted .276 with 25 home runs and 96 doubles, helping the Red Sox advance to the ALCS, where they would lose to those New York Yankees in the 11th inning of Game 7. However, Millar and the rest of the team would remember.
In 2004, it goes without being said, the Red Sox completed the greatest comeback in the history of sports, coming back from a 3-0 series deficit to advance to the World Series where they would reverse the curse and eventually become world champions.
That must have felt good.
The same year Millar batted .297 with 18 long balls and 36 doubles and played 150 games for the team. He would play one more year for the Sox before his contract expired. The 34-year-old then signed with the Orioles for three seasons, then with the Toronto Blue Jays’ minor league team for one season. He would sign with the Chicago Cubs on a minor-league contract before being released.
He then retired from baseball in 2010 and would start his career as a baseball analyst on MLB Network, New England Sports Network and then Fox Sports. While he was doing this he signed a contract with the St. Paul Saints where he would play six games while continuing his work as an analyst.
Millar was allowed just one more at-bat this year at 47 years old for the Saints as a part of a promotional night. He hit a two-run home run in the second inning, not too bad for a 47-year-old with four kids and a wife.
The former first baseman still works for MLB Network as a co-host on the show “Intentional Talk.”
