[z28jd]

The old story goes that Dots Miller got his nickname when someone from the press asked Honus Wagner where the new kid Miller was and with his thick German accent, he said "That's Miller", which sounded like Dots Miller and the name stuck. There was a flaw in that story in that Wagner didn't even go to Spring Training in 1909 and Miller was fairly well publicized by then, as local papers provided a ton of ST coverage, believe me, I just read through it all.

I never believed that story and got more suspicious of it when I bought three postcards signed by Dots, sent to his family back in 1911 and he signed them Dots. I also have a local newspaper from 1909 that called him Dots, but past research indicated that the Pittsburgh newspapers called him Jack, John or even Honus the second early in his career, but never Dots before....(irony of using dots to announce it is recognized)

On May 11,1909 the Pirates played in Philadelphia and a lot of his family and friends made the trip over from Kearny,NJ to see him play. It was there that everyone called him Dots and the next day's paper first printed it.

The story is almost exactly the same as Wagner's in that it was a German accent mixing up Dots and That's, but it was actually Miller's own accent and he had the nickname since he was a kid.

So while the nickname story attributing it to Wagner is nice, it's not true. Now you know the whole story and Dots the truth.