O's Millar Once Helped Launch a Nation

"Cowboy Up!" It's the phrase Kevin Millar made momentarily famous while a member of the Boston Red Sox. (Jason Arnold - Reuters)

FORT MYERS, Fla. March 19 -- They lined up next to the visitors' dugout in the early morning with their thick, gooey clam chowder accents and red and navy blue caps and shirts, the citizens of a nation that hasn't forgotten the cowboy from California. He may wear boots and ride a loud motorcycle, but Kevin Millar is from Los Angeles, and he certainly is no cowboy, no matter what those fans lined up waiting for the Baltimore Orioles' new first baseman said before Sunday's exhibition game.

"I didn't fall for it," Red Sox outfielder Gabe Kapler joked.

But the funny thing is that they all fell for it, every bit of it, from the moment in August 2003 when he had looked into a crowd of reporters and said those two words that became an anthem.

"Cowboy Up!"

It must be something about ballplayers and macho pride because it was about 13 years ago when Ray Domecq, a career minor leaguer who had moved to Wyoming, had first begun to think about trademarking an old saying some of his former teammates had made popular. It was one day when Domecq sat with friends who worked in a rodeo and in casual conversation one of them said, "Cowboy Up!"

"Man, you guys sound just like ballplayers," Domecq told them.

And that was the beginning of it. Soon after Domecq trademarked the saying and began printing up T-shirts, which sold modestly, until one day this crazy Boston ballplayer nearly lost his mind and yelled at a group of reporters.

Pitcher Derek Lowe had struggled while pitching with a blister and as a result was himself blistered by some reporters. Millar had tired of the negativity in Boston. It had hung on the franchise like a noose and eventually every player felt it.

"How could you question him when he could barely throw the ball?" Millar thought to himself. "I didn't want them to bury Lowe because we needed him."

Lowe had been an important part of that '03 Red Sox team but he had fallen apart, like the rest of the squad, so Millar, the ultimate cheerleader, tried to find a way to make them lively again.

"Cowboy Up!" he yelled.

It was a saying he had heard in the minors. He remembers saying it in winter ball. It was common for ballplayers, especially those from the southwest, to talk about cowboys. But never did he think that northeasterners would adopt the saying.