It’s still difficult to process that former ML pitcher, Octavio Dotel was one of nearly 200 people to have perished in a night club tragedy in the Dominican Republic. From the half a dozen baseball accounts that I’ve seen the past couple of days, the writers didn’t appear to have ever seen him pitch, which is pretty amazing as his last season was 2013. But even if one merely looks at his numbers, it was a pretty darn good career. But because he never pitched for either of the two teams that I follow, his shortcomings never really mattered.

In parts of 15 ML seasons, he made 724 relief appearances and 34 starts. In his first season as a reliever only (2002), he appeared in a career high 83 games, was 6-4 with six saves and a 1.85 ERA. I remember him most for his years in a very good Houston Astros bullpen. And if you went to games between 1999-2013, you probably saw him pitch. In a nod to today’s modern bullpen, he would have been a success. He posted a career 3.78 ERA with 109 saves, but wasn’t the primary closer that often. Most impressively, he posted a 10.38 k/9IP in 951 innings.

From what several people in the know have spoken about this week was his ability to keep his teammates on their toes and making them laugh. What most every baseball centric story focused on was his pitching for 13 different teams, a record he held until 2019, when Edwin Jackson pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays, his 14th ML team.

Dotel’s passing got me to thinking about Bob Miller, the vagabond pitcher, who-58 only played for 10 different teams from 1957-74. What makes Miller’s story so interesting was that he was one of three Bob Miller’s that pitched during the era.

This Bob, was later known as Bob L Miller-in order to distinguish himself from Bob J and Bob G Miller. Bob L was born in STL in 1939 and began his career in ’57 with the Cards. Among his 10 stops in the big leagues, he was a right handed pitcher for the 1962 Mets.

Bob J Miller was a right-handed pitcher that was born in Detroit in 1926 but played his entire career (1949-58) with only one team, the Phillies. He and Bob L overlapped one year-1957.

Bob G Miller was a left=handed pitcher born in 1936 in Berwyn Illinois and pitched in the Majors from 1953-1962. However, he didn’t pitch in the big leagues during the ’57 season and overlap the other Bob Millers. He did pitch briefly for the1962 Mets.

Since I wasn’t following the game back then, I can’t speak to the confusion or lack thereof. However, when all three were retired, there was confusion among fans and autograph collectors. At card shows and other public appearances they had to include the distinguishing middle initial (like a serial killer).

Over the years, there have been several examples of guys with the same name playing concurrently often because they had common names. Think about Will Smith, the lefty reliever, and Will Smith the Dodgers catcher. Pedro Martinez, RHP and HOF’er and WS champion and Pedro Martinez, the lefty reliever.

I first became aware of Vagabond Bob L Miller and his itinerant behavior in 1972 when I got his Topps baseball card (414). He was pictured in a Pirates uniform and looked rather relaxed-especially for a guy on his 9th of 10 teams. At the time, I didn’t realize what that meant, other than the obvious. He was “much loved” by the baseball community. After doing a little digging I found out that he pitched for three different teams in the same season, 3 times. He did spend parts of 1970 and ’71 with the Cubs, I can’t pretend I have any memories. He only pitched 16 innings on the north side.

When one is a crazy baseball fan, it’s terribly easy to go down a rabbit hole at the mere mention of a guy like Octavio Dotel. Some might bristle that I haven’t mentioned Mike Morgan and the 13 ML teams that he pitched for from 1979-2002, but because he pitched on some Cub teams I’ve been trying to forget for the past 30 years.

R.I.P Octavio Dotel.