Early 1900s Major League Baseball Player Cum Doctor Lived An All-Too Brief Life Terminating With His Tragic Demise At 55 Years of Age
"Ever hear of a major league baseball player by the name Roy Oscar “Doc” Miller?" asked Chatham husband-and-wife history researchers Jim and Lisa Gilbert.
Well you probably did not. Neither had I for that matter.
Miller was the son of Robert and Elizabeth Miller, who were of Scottish ancestry. He was born on Feb. 4, 1883, the youngest of five children; he had three older brothers and one older sister. Unfortunately, when he was only eight, his father – who was described as a “prosperous local merchant” – died and left his poor, grief-stricken wife alone to raise five young children.
The 5-foot-10-inch, 170-pound, left-handed-hitting-outfielder was often described by those that knew him in the baseball world as “heady, ambitious and unconventional”. He proved to be a sharp and intelligent student and breezed through all of his classes in public school and graduated from Chatham Collegiate Institute with a better that average grade. He then enrolled in the University of Toronto and earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1907.
Although a very good student all through elementary, high school and university, Miller was a gifted all-around student who was just as comfortable on a ball diamond as he was in the classroom. During university, he had begun pitching and playing shortstop and outfield on a local semi-pro team. His excellence on the field eventually attracted the attention of professional scouts.
He began his career in organized baseball in 1903 with Manchester, New Hampshire, in the Class B New England League. There, he managed to hit a very a very impressive .225 in only 25 games.
This was followed by playing for a number of teams in the minor leagues. Although Miller played all over the place for a good number of minor league teams, he never forgot that his schooling was most important. All the time he was playing ball, he was also able to finish his college degree and begin his medical studies.
Although, his Boston team was absolutely dismal (they finished 54 games behind the pennant-winning New York Giants), Roy had an outstanding season. He led the National League with 192 hits. His .333 average was second in the league. His 36 doubles was second in the league, and his 95 RBIs were fifth best – and he also stole 32 bases.
What made the season even more remarkable was that he quit the team in mid-July, claiming he had not been paid a bonus promised by Boston owner Russell. Eventually Miller did return to the Boston team on the condition that the owner would look for a trade for him before the end of the season.
The trade did not materialize and Miller was forced to start the next season in Boston. He was hitting .234 in mid-June when the team was finally able to arrange a trade that sent him to the Philadelphia Phillies for outfielder John Titus.
In his final 67 games with the Phillies, Miller hit .288. This set up the famous hitting duel between the famous Honus Wagner of Pittsburgh and Chatham’s own Roy “Doc” Miller.
There is no record of Miller playing professional baseball in 1907; it is likely he was back in Ontario finishing his university degree and beginning his medical studies. The next year he was back in the Western League, this time with Pueblo, Colorado, batting .273 in 102 games. Through his first five minor-league seasons, Miller’s offensive numbers (.263 average with little power) were rather pedestrian, but he had a breakout year in 1909 that served as a springboard to the major leagues.
Miller started the season with Pueblo again and was hitting .367 when he was acquired by the San Francisco Seals in midseason. His debut was delayed by a week because he first had to return to Toronto to take some medical exams. For the Seals he hit .347 in 60 games. Miller showed some extra-base power as well, rapping 25 doubles, 8 triples, and 12 homers for both teams. Even though he had only 219 at-bats with the Seals, he was recognized as the Pacific Coast League batting champion. Miller was personally signed by Chicago Cubs manager Frank Chance in the offseason while the latter was in Southern California looking after some business interests.
Miller attended spring training with Chicago in New Orleans in the spring of 1910. The Cubs thought so much of his bat that they briefly considered moving him to the infield, where it was thought he could unseat either Joe Tinker at shortstop or third baseman Harry Steinfeldt. He made the Cubs’ Opening Day roster and made his major-league debut with a pinch-hitting appearance on May 4 against the Pirates in Pittsburgh. That would be Miller’s only at bat with the Cubs; on May 13 he was traded to the Boston Doves for pitcher Lew Richie. He settled in as the Doves’ regular right fielder and had a solid rookie season, batting .288 in 130 games. Slow foot speed was one of the reasons given for Miller’s poor defense (11 errors and a .951 fielding average) but in his defense, right field was a notorious sun field at Boston’s South End Grounds.
Originally the Red Stockings, and then the Beaneaters when George Dovey owned the Boston National League franchise, the team was nicknamed the Doves. After Dovey died, the team was sold to William Hepburn Russell and renamed the Rustlers. They would go by that name just one season, 1911, before becoming the Braves the following year. Russell hired longtime Boston baseball icon Fed Tenney to manage the club, but the 1911 Rustlers were one of the worst teams in major-league history, finishing with 44 wins and 107 losses, 54 games behind the pennant-winning New York Giants. Maybe the only highlight that season was 44-year-old Cy Young’s 511th and final win, a 1-0 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates on September 22.
Despite the team’s dismal performance, Miller had an outstanding season. He led the National League with 192 hits (tied with Brooklyn’s Jake Daubert) and singles (146), and as mentioned earlier, his .333 average was second in the league. His 36 doubles were second and his 91 RBIs were fifth best. He stole 32 bases. Though Miller was a notoriously poor outfielder, he had 26 outfield assists, fourth best in the National League. It is not clear if that signified a strong left throwing arm, or the fact that he was making a lot of plays on balls he should have caught in the first place.
Russell was able to trade Herzog to the New York Giants but couldn’t complete a deal for Miller. Frank Chance, the Cubs manager, expressed some interest in having Miller return to Chicago, and John McGraw of New York discussed a swap that would have sent outfielder Mike Donlin to Boston for Miller. A six-player blockbuster with Cincinnati was also briefly on the table, but none of these deals could be completed, and Miller finished the season in Boston.
Deserved or not, Miller had a reputation as a selfish ballplayer, more concerned with his batting average than team success. In the midst of a hot streak in June 1911 when Miller briefly led the National League in hitting, Chicago’s Chance was asked if he now regretted trading him the previous year. Chance said that he did not and went on to say that Miller often swung at pitches with the count 3-and-0, and he had no use for such a player. Miller’s response was, “Well, we haven’t a chance, so I might as well look out for myself.”
Miller started the 1912 season in Boston and was hitting .234 in mid-June when the team was finally able to arrange a trade, sending him to the Philadelphia Phillies for outfielder John Titus. Miller blamed not having felt well all season as the reason his hitting and fielding had dropped off. With the change in scenery, his production increased and he hit .288 in 67 games the rest of the season for the Phillies. He was back in Philadelphia the next year but Gavvy Cravath beat him out for the right-field job and he was used primarily as a pinch-hitter.
By this time Miller had earned a well-deserved reputation as an outstanding hitter but a liability in the field. When he played for San Francisco, the team owner, Frank M. Ish, remarked, “Miller was a terrific batter but very weak in the field.” As early as 1910 Chicago sportswriter Ring Lardner thought Miller would be best suited as a pinch-hitter. He wrote “Doc Miller’s slugging ability is likely to win him a home. He appears to be a natural born hitter.” But Lardner also said “he wouldn’t be a white elephant on the manager’s hands if he were retained only as a substitute batter.”
Sportswriter Fred Lieb, describing a 1914 game, wrote, “(Miller) should shoot the man who called him an outfielder. … Whenever a ball was hit to right field the Doc would run around in circles. Everybody on base always scored.” Sporting Life also chimed in, saying “In navigating the outer gardens, Doc’s movements were as majestically graceful as a freighter loaded to the waterline. …”
After the 1913 season the ground-breaking Chatham native was placed on waivers by Philadelphia. When he was not claimed, manager Mickey Dooin sold him to Montreal of the International League. Even though it would be nearer his Canadian home, Miller refused to return to the minors and announced he would retire from baseball and enter a medical practice with his brother in California. At this point Cincinnati owner Garry Herrmann, who had tried to acquire Miller after his brief strike in 1911, entered the picture again. Knowing that Miller was also being pursued by Baltimore of the Federal League, and that Miller’s threat of retirement probably was nothing more than a negotiating ploy, Herrmann was able to persuade Miller to sign with his club.
In 1914, in what would be his final major-league season, Miller hit .255 for Cincinnati. He played only 50 games in the outfield but made 44 pinch-hitting appearances. Still considered the top pinch-hitter in the National League, he went 12-for-34 (he drew eight walks and had two sacrifices among his 44 plate appearances) for an average of .353. Cincinnati released Miller in February of 1915, but by this time he had fully committed to medicine, and he had no desire to continue his baseball career.
Miller finished with a .295 career batting average over five seasons (1910-1914). Complete box score and play-by-play data is unavailable, but he played in only 425 games in the outfield (committing 32 errors) among his total of 557 games played. It is believed he had 39 pinch hits in 120 at-bats (.309) over his career.
In 1916 Miller began taking postgraduate courses at Cornell University Medical School in New York City, and later opened his own practice, becoming a specialist in skin diseases and cancer. Apparently despondent over the death of his wife Addie two years earlier, he committed suicide by jumping from a third-story window on July 31, 1938, in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was 55 years old and cremated and interred at North Bergen (New Jersey) Garden Crematory.
The Millers had no children and left no descendants. "Doc" Miller was posthumously inducted into the Chatham Sports Hall of Fame and the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2009.
