Mt. Blue’s Mike Milliken was more than happy to make the move to catcher to help his team out.
FARMINGTON – Facing the graduation of their star three-year catcher that spring, the Mt. Blue baseball coaching staff huddled in the winter of 2002 to come up with a successor.
The student that head coach Gary Parlin and assistant coach Craig Collins had originally pegged for the role announced that he was switching to lacrosse. So they had to hand-pick another receiver.
“Coach Collins and I talked about it and it was the easiest decision we ever had to make,” Parlin said.
Their choice was Mike Milliken, a junior at the time, who had played right field and third base for the first half of his high school baseball career.
“We knew he had the right mentality for it,” Parlin said.
Milliken doesn’t mind doing the grunt work, even if it means others get the glory. This is a kid who came out for football for the first time his senior year just so he could play special teams.
“It wasn’t a thing where we said to him, ‘If you don’t catch, you can’t play,’ because he’d be starting outfield for us or he could play third base. He could play anywhere,” Parlin said. “But I think he really saw an opportunity where he could help us out.”
He’s done more than help the Cougars out. He’s been the backbone of a team that lost eight starters this year yet is still headed for the Eastern A playoffs.
“He’s been our most valuable player because of how he handles this staff, plus he’s come on hitting, which has been a bonus,” he said.
It all started last spring, when Collins put Milliken through rigorous catching drills and taught him the basics of the position. Milliken had caught for a couple of years in Little League, so the basics came fairly easily. It was the finer points that he needed to hone.
“I picked it up pretty quick. It took me a lot of the first year to get my footwork but eventually I got used to the footwork and blocking balls in the dirt,” he said.
His junior year, Milliken generally caught two JV games a week, then was brought up to varsity for the Cougars’ “big games” against the likes of Cony and Oxford Hills. With the big club, he could learn the art of catching from senior Tim Shumway, a three-year captain and one of the best defensive catchers Parlin says he’s ever coached.
“Tim helped me out a lot and I really appreciated it,” Milliken said. “He was a great catcher.”
Adding to the burden of learning a new position, Milliken had to become a leader on the team.
“I felt like we needed someone on the team to be vocal, and I was willing to take that responsibility,” he said. “I’d say I’ve been more vocal as a catcher because you have to take that role when your playing back there.”
As a leader on the field, one of the most important things for a new catcher is to earn the trust of his teammates, particularly the pitchers.
The pitchers were a bit skeptical at first throwing to a new backstop, but according to staff ace Justin Tibbetts, Milliken earned their respect quickly by throwing his body in front of balls thrown into the dirt and by learning each pitcher’s tendancies.
“It didn’t take as long as I thought it would take,” Tibbetts said. “It took maybe a couple of games. We definitely are on the same page now. I just started throwing sidearm last year and he catches it like he’s caught it his entire life.”
“To be a JV player most of the time last year and be elected captain this year says a lot about him, because most of the time our captains come from kids who are returning varsity players,” Parlin said. “He’s got the respect of his teammates and the respect of the coaching staff.”
It took some time for Milliken to learn the intricacies of position, like framing pitches in the strike zone and knowing when to talk to pitchers on the mound. But this season, Parlin said, he’s looked like a veteran behind the plate.
“He’s really been handling the pitching staff well, especially for just his second full year back there,” Tibbetts said. “He’ll tell us to relax and if we’re not throwing strikes he’ll tell us what we look like out there and what we need to change.”
“I don’t think we’ve made more than two trips to the mound the second half of the season,” Parlin said. “He goes out at the right time and he gets the message across.”
Milliken knows why catching is perhaps the least glamorous position on the diamond. The black and blue spots on his body remind him almost daily.
“I’ve taken a few (foul tips) off the legs and off the shoulder, but nothing too extreme,” said Milliken, who will attend the University of Maine at Farmington in the fall to major in community health. “You get bruised back there.”
The bruises are just mementos from a job well done.
“He’s just one of those guys who likes to play,” Parlin said. “He’s a catcher.”
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