FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- As usual, before getting down to the serious business of a game, Ray Miller let the bill of his cap sit casually on his head. Breathe on it and it falls off. There was about an hour before another spring training game, a routine Miller has been around since he was a minor-league pitcher 30 years ago.

He hunted down a cup of coffee -- black -- and frowned upon noticing a face or two he didn't recognize in the clubhouse.

Ray Miller, who was Baltimore's pitching coach under Davey Johnson, will be calling the shots this season. (AP)

"Baseball is a very unique business in that in very few businesses do you have 95 percent of the employees make a helluva lot more than the manager does. The only control you have over that in that situation is if you have everybody very organized, everybody in the same program," Miller said.

HE IS IN CHARGE FOR THE FIRST TIME since late in the 1986 season, when the Minnesota Twins dismissed him not two seasons into his only experience as a major-league manager. After more dues-paying as the pitching brains to two well-regarded managers -- nine years with Jim Leyland in Pittsburgh and one with Davey Johnson in Baltimore -- Miller is running the show again.

This time he inherits an Orioles club that knows it is looking at a brief window of opportunity. It exists this year, for sure, and next year, perhaps: World Series or bust. The Orioles are a team of talented and older veterans who would have made the Series last year were it not for the unanticipated play of the Cleveland Indians, who did a better job of maximizing the little things.

On an uneventful Tuesday in early March, Miller was talking about control. The subject returned to the unfamiliar faces in the clubhouse.

"I think the players today appreciate discipline," Miller said. "They appreciate preparedness. They appreciate somebody taking care of the little stuff -- like keeping the clubhouse clear 45 minutes before the game so they don't have to worry about what they say. And I think that's all a part of managing."

For that matter, Miller's not too fond of having to watch what he says either.

"For the same reason -- and I guess I'm going to have to -- but I don't like to wear a microphone during a game. I don't think that's appropriate and I feel like I'm violating the respect I have for my players by allowing someone to listen in to what I'm saying. Or to use it. They say they won't use it," Miller said, "but I've heard a couple of managers drop the big one on TV. That ain't good. I don't want to do that. The other thing is, what happens to the outtakes? Somebody puts that together and sells that, you know."

In these moments, Miller doesn't sound much unlike Earl Weaver, the first major-league manager he served. Always planning ahead. Always examining three scenarios simultaneously.

Twenty years ago, Miller would have laughed at the chance of getting this far. He was the first pitching coach to succeed the legendary George Bamberger and the 1978 Orioles -- with Jim Palmer, Mike Flanagan, Scott McGregor -- gave up home runs during an opening four-game series in Milwaukee like they were part of the buffet at a bratwurst festival. The Orioles started the season 0-4, their pitching in tatters under the guidance of someone whom the organization said would replace Bamberger ably.

DOES HE THINK much about those days?

"Are you kidding me? Replacing George Bamberger? First three games we gave up 37 earned runs or something. That guy (who slides into a pool of beer after a home run) was worn out sliding down that thing out there in center field. That was the birth of the Brew Crew," Miller said. "I was thinking, 'Who the hell are these guys?' I was more worried about the Yankees ... That spring, the last five games I think we gave up one run. We're going north and I say, 'Man, this is the best pitching I've ever had.' "

By the time the Orioles returned to old Memorial Stadium, Miller didn't know quite how to anticipate his first home-field Opening Day in a major-league uniform.

"Thought I'd be booed off the field," he said.

Flanagan remembers how Miller and new coach Elrod Hendricks feared for their jobs. But the pitchers were only so much aware. They feared for their own careers. Eventually, Palmer pitched a one-hitter, the team stabilized and made a run before the Red Sox and Yankees pulled away in the '78 pennant race.

WITH ANOTHER HOME OPENER looming, there won't be boos for Miller. While Flanagan calls Johnson a "tremendous game-day manager," some Baltimore fans may be glad to see a manager who is more likely to play for a run at a time. While fans will miss Johnson's winning touch, they won't miss the contention that marred the relationship between Johnson and owner Peter Angelos.

And there is always room for a new look.

"If we get a couple of runs off a quality starter early," Flanagan said, "we may do some things in the middle of the game to score one or two more, maybe to get that starter out or get into teams' bullpens. I think they felt last year maybe they'd score a couple early and the pitcher settles in. Then you sort of become a free-swinging club through the middle and you look out and (Roger) Clemens is still out there in the eighth."

MILLER WILL TWEAK and adjust. But as a terrific minor-league pitcher who never reached the big leagues, he knows the special talents in the majors.

"I ain't seen nothing but quality people here. And I've been around the block a little bit... They know that anything you run out there, you know it will work and will make it better for them. And they appreciate that. Because the players play the game. People who take credit for the players, or take credit for making somebody a good player here, they're idiots" Miller said. "The players are good players. The thing you've got to do is get them focused.

"The biggest thing for me last year, and I've told everybody this, is I got way too much credit for the success of the pitching staff. Way too much. But I will take credit for getting them focused. As far as physical ability -- hell, I didn't throw a pitch."

This year he'll just throw some batting practice -- or somebody out of the clubhouse who doesn't have the right authorization.

Mike Lurie is a sportswriter on CBS SportsLine's staff.