01:00 AM EST on Sunday, April 2, 2006

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- The phone call was of a more serious nature than Terry Francona had come to expect from Kevin Millar, coming just as the affable first baseman/outfielder turned his pickup truck, for the first time in four years, toward Florida's other coast.

"He called and said, 'Tell me the joke's over [and I can come back],' " the Red Sox manager said. "He was on his way to Fort Lauderdale."

Millar, 34, is now with the Orioles. For three years in Boston, he essentially served as rush chairman in a clubhouse frat that seems to have had its doors shut, intentionally or otherwise, by the front-office deans this spring.

"I'll miss it a ton," Millar said. "People joke that the cord's cut, but it's still part of your life. The three years you spent there were truly the greatest you had in the game. It's something I'll always remember."