O's Millar Once Helped Launch a Nation

By Jorge Arangure Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 20, 2006

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.

"In two or three days the entire area of New England was cowboying up," Millar said. For Domecq it had meant a boon to sales, which continues today.

"When we started in '93 it was meant for young people to have something cool in the western industry," Domecq said. "It's grown a little bit mainstream because of Kevin."

Domecq's Wyoming West Designs in the late summer of 2003 reached an agreement with the Red Sox to sell official Boston "Cowboy Up" shirts. Almost the entire city of Boston embraced the motto.

"For that three-month stretch people were looking on the Internet and realizing the company existed," Millar said. "It turned into a great slogan. It makes you toughen up. You can use it in so many different situations."

The chants of "Cowboy Up" have followed Millar to the Orioles; how he earned such a reputation is part of Red Sox lore.

"It means toughness," Millar said. "When you tell someone to 'cowboy up' it's basically saying 'be tough.' "

It is rare for Millar to appear somewhere without hearing those two words. The slogan likely will always be associated with Millar and he is proud of it.

"I think it will always be there," Millar said. "If I would have said it when I was in Florida, and I probably did anyway, it wouldn't get as magnified."

Millar said that Orioles fans have approached him asking for a slogan for this year's team. But Millar said he usually just shrugs his shoulders. If there will be a slogan for the Orioles it must come naturally.

"You can't just make stuff up," Millar said. "Each team has its own personality."