Double Duty For O's Pair

[ThomasTomasz]

Fort Lauderdale, Fla. // They dress about 10 yards from each other in the home clubhouse at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, one with an icy stare fixed on his face, the other a goofy grin.

Jeff Conine and Kevin Millar have three World Series rings and more than 20 years of major league service time between them, but they came to the Orioles this offseason under similar circumstances.

They are two veterans looking for regular playing time and wanting to prove that they have quality big league seasons ahead of them.

"I think they want to get a group of guys that want to play in Baltimore, that want to bring a new attitude here, that want to believe that this team can do it," said Millar, the former Boston Red Sox player and a self-proclaimed wacko, who signed a one-year, $2.1 million deal with the Orioles in January.

"If you're not believing that, then get out of the locker room. We believe that we can win a championship with the team we have here. But you've got to get the rest of the guys believing."

In one sense, that will be one of the responsibilities for Conine and Millar: to convince an Orioles team that has suffered through eight straight losing seasons that it will be a loser no more.

They give Orioles manager Sam Perlozzo some flexibility at first base, in left field and at designated hitter.

But they also were signed to advise younger players, keep teammates happy and loose, and help mend a clubhouse that was ripped apart last season by drunken driving arrests, steroid scandals, player feuds and a monumental fall from first to fourth place in the American League East.

"It got ugly," said Conine, 39, who spoke regularly to Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts and right fielder Jay Gibbons, whom he mentored during his first stint with the club from 1999 to 2003. "I think everybody in baseball knew it was not a great place to be."

Orioles vice president Jim Duquette has kept close tabs on the clubhouse the past 10 days and said that he has already seen Conine's and Millar's influence manifest itself. Ramon Hernandez, who was signed to take Javy Lopez's starting catcher job, has been virtually inseparable from Lopez in camp.

Luis Matos and Corey Patterson have been talking amicably and comparing notes in between drills, all while dueling for the starting center field job. The newest member of the Orioles' rotation, Kris Benson, has organized dinner and a fishing trip for his fellow starters.

"The looseness they've brought to the clubhouse, the attitude and the atmosphere, and the leadership that they provide, their reputation has preceded them," Duquette said.

Millar, the former leader of the band of "idiots" that brought Boston its long-awaited World Series championship in 2004, held court with the media not long before he entered the Orioles' clubhouse for the first time.

His message was filled with terms like "hope" and "belief," and he talked about having his Orioles teammates become "rock stars," like the Red Sox are in Boston.

"Kevin wants to win. That's the bottom line," Gibbons said. "He might be a clown, but he loves this game. It's taken all of four days to click with him."

Not surprisingly, Millar, 34, and Conine, both former Florida Marlins, though never teammates, have gravitated toward each other in the first week of spring. They are, however, two strikingly different clubhouse personalities.

Conine, with strong facial features and an intense stare that Gibbons said has intimidated rookies, mixes a no-nonsense persona with a dry sense of humor, taking cracks at everything from a reporter's clothes to Gibbons' bank account.

Millar is the clubhouse clown, the Los Angeles native with the bleached-blond hair, a mouth that never stops moving and a propensity for practical jokes.

Millar injected his sense of humor into Perlozzo's second clubhouse meeting, planting his cell phone in pitcher Bruce Chen's locker and asking bullpen coach Rick Dempsey to call it when Perlozzo was talking to the team. (Perlozzo has established a $100 fine for a ringing cell phone during a clubhouse meeting).

Chen, however, saw Millar put the phone in his locker, so he retrieved it and then placed it in Erik Bedard's locker. When the phone rang during a meeting, Bedard immediately yelled, "We got one," a reference to catching the first violator of the cell phone rule. He then realized the ringing phone was in his locker.
"I want to see if Perlozzo is going to step up and fine someone," said Millar, who admits he still has something to prove after hitting .272 last season with nine homers and 50 RBIs.

Millar, of course, has a history of such behavior. Last season with Boston, he took early-morning batting practice in St. Louis in just underwear and shoes. He thought nobody else was around until he turned around and saw a large tour group behind him.

"I looked back and there were 50 women taking pictures of my bad body," Millar said.

If Millar is the clubhouse's comedian, Conine will likely be its cop, an intimidating presence that will make sure the Orioles' younger players display etiquette befitting major leaguers. Gibbons remembers Conine and B.J. Surhoff getting on him several years ago for not hustling while shagging balls in the outfield during spring training.

Several players noted last year that the Orioles lacked a take-charge clubhouse personality and too many younger players fell into bad habits. Rookie Bernie Castro, summoned from Triple-A Ottawa in September, was late for batting practice three consecutive days and nobody said a word.

"You try to take care of it quietly first, and then you embarrass him in front of his peers," said a succinct Conine, not speaking specifically about Castro. "That's something that has to be called to attention and addressed."

Still, those close to Conine say that while he can be hard on the younger players inside the clubhouse, he takes care of them outside of it. Gibbons estimated that Conine paid for his dinner at least 50 times, and reminded him that Gibbons "was on scholarship" because he never had to pay for anything as long as he was around.

"He accused me of just going out to dinner with him because he was going to pay," Gibbons said. "And the first thing he did when he signed with us was text-message me and say, 'Now, I'm on scholarship.' "

Roberts joked that Conine, who hit .304 with three homers and 33 RBIs last season for Florida, paid for his dinner so many times he contemplated claiming the second baseman on his taxes.

"You need guys that keep it light and like to have fun," Roberts said. "It's a long season. It's important for every clubhouse to have guys like Niner and Millar, especially for us right now, coming off all of the serious stuff we've been through."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/basebal...sports-baseball

[ThomasTomasz]

I think I'm revising my opinion on Millar being with the Orioles. I may not be expecting him to perform any better than last year, but from what I've read, the extra things he brings to the clubhouse is worth every penny of his $2 million-plus salary. Everything looks much better than last year, and competing people are communicating well.

Hernandez needs to learn Mazzone's teaching style to work with the pitchers, and needs to learn as much about the pitchers as he can. The road for both is through Javy Lopez.

Matos and Patterson, two very similar players that are competing, are talking and exchanging notes. Both are even fighting for their job with the Orioles, yet are getting along just fine. Hopefully, both can avoid injury this year, and perform very well.

Finally, Benson is taking a leadership role with the starters. He won't be the ace, but he's been through it all as a major league pitcher. The ups of being the #1 draft pick, and the downs of being on the DL surgery after surgery. I like that he's taking the leadership role with this staff.

I don't think any of those situations would happen without Conine and Millar. Both have their own style of leadership and getting along with their teammates, but they both contrast each other well.