Ralph Milliard was a second baseman who played in 42 games
for the Marlins and Mets from 1996 to 1998.
Ralph Gregory Milliard was born December 30, 1973, in
Willemstad, Curacao, and played baseball from an early age. When he was eleven
his family moved to Soest in the Netherlands, and at 17 he was playing for the
Dutch national team. In 1992 he was signed by the Florida Marlins’ European
scout and he made his minor league debut the next season, playing Rookie ball
with the Marlins’ team in the Gulf Coast League. He was the regular second
baseman, hitting just .234 but with a .354 on-base percentage.
In 1994 Ralph played for the Kane County Cougars in the
Class A Midwest League. He made the all-star game and hit .297/.384/.417,
leading the league in runs scored with 97. He then played in the Arizona Fall
League and got a mention in the Sporting
News, which said that he “continues to make the Marlins swoon.” In 1995 he
was moved up to the Class AA Portland Sea Dogs of the Eastern League, where he
hit .267/.393/.399 with eleven homers and 22 stolen bases, and again led the
league in runs scored, with 104.
Ralph was invited to spring training with the Marlins in
1996, but in mid-March was optioned to the Charlotte Knights of the Class AAA
International League. On Saturday, May 11, the following story appeared in
several newspapers:
A STOP AT THE BORDER: The Florida Marlins were looking for a second baseman, so they called the Canadian border patrol.
The Marlins wanted to recall Ralph Milliard from Triple-A Charlotte after Quilvio Veras went on the disabled list with a hamstring strain sustained during Thursday’s 6-2 victory against Colorado.
But Milliard was on the Charlotte team bus en route from a game in Syracuse to a weekend series in Ottawa. Marlins officials knew that Milliard lost his passport earlier this season, meaning that if he crossed the Canadian border, it might be next week before he could return to the United States.
With two people working the phones frantically, the Marlins contacted the border patrol late Thursday.
“We told them to stop the bus and not let it out of the country,” general manager Dave Dombrowski said.
When the border patrol intercepted the bus, Milliard got off and waited at the border while the driver dropped off the rest of the team at Ottawa. Then Milliard caught the bus on its way back to Syracuse, took an 8:15 a.m. flight to Miami and was in uniform for last night’s game between the Marlins and Rockies.
Ralph made his major league debut on May 12, coming into the
game at second base in the eighth inning on a double switch, and walking in his
lone plate appearance. His first game in the starting lineup was on May 18, and
he was the regular second baseman through June 12, batting eighth. After that
he shuffled back and forth between Florida and Charlotte as players went onto
and came off of the disabled list, and he even spent a week back at Portland in
early August for some reason. He wound up hitting .161/.312/.194 in 62 at-bats
in his 24 games with the Marlins, but got raves for his defense; with Charlotte
his hitting stats were similar to 1995.
Ralph went to spring training 1997 on the Marlins’ roster,
but on March 25 was optioned to Charlotte. The Sporting News reported:
Second baseman Ralph Milliard led the team this spring with a .531 batting average—beating Gary Sheffield’s previous team mark of .440. But because the club has Luis Castillo starting at second and veterans Kurt Abbott and Alex Arias, Milliard will open the season at Class AAA Charlotte.
Ralph was called up on May 7 when Castillo got hurt. While
he had worn number 37 for the Marlins the previous season, now he wanted to
honor Jackie Robinson, but since Dennis Cook was already wearing 42 Ralph took
21.
But he only lasted until May 17 on the roster, starting eight games at
second, mostly batting leadoff, hitting .200/.314/.200. Due to injuries he only
played 60 games that season, the eight at Florida plus 33 at Charlotte and 19
at Portland, and his minor league hitting stats were down a bit from previous
years.
After the season there was speculation that the Marlins
might lose Ralph in the expansion draft, but that didn’t happen; I assume they
either protected him to begin with or else he was one of the additional players
they got to protect after losing someone else (the first player taken was
Marlins’ pitcher Tony Saunders, by Tampa Bay). However, that didn’t mean he was
staying with Florida, as on February 6, 1998, they traded him to the Mets along
with Al Leiter, for A.J. Burnett, Jesus Sanchez, and Rob Stratton. A few days
later he signed a one-year contract.
During spring training the Mets optioned Ralph to the Norfolk
Tides of the International League, and he stayed there to the end of their
season. He hit .259/.385/.444 in 417 at-bats, with a career-high 15 home runs.
He then got called up to New York and played in ten games in the month of
September—entirely as a defensive sub and pinch runner, except for one
pinch-hitting appearance in which he struck out in his only time at bat as a
Met. As it turned out, that was the end of his major league career.
On January 25, 1999, Ralph signed a one-year contract with
the Mets, but four days later they traded him to the Reds for minor-league
pitcher Mark Corey. He suffered an injury of some sort during spring training
and missed a good part of the season; when he did come back he was with the
Reds’ Class AA team, the Chattanooga Lookouts of the Southern League. He only
got into 32 games, playing shortstop now, hitting .294/.417/.461—the highest
on-base and slugging marks of his career, but of course it was only AA, and
apparently the Reds were unimpressed, as by spring training 2000 Ralph was the
property of the San Diego Padres.
At the end of spring training the Padres assigned Ralph to
their AAA farm team, the Las Vegas Stars of the Pacific Coast League. He hit .280/.390/.407 in 448 at-bats in 108
games, playing more shortstop than second base, and even a little third. I
don’t know whether the Padres might have called him up in September, but as it
happened he went to Sydney, Australia, and played for the Netherlands in the
Olympics. The team won three and lost four, just missing the medal round, but
one of the biggest stories of the tournament was their victory over Cuba on
September 20, breaking Cuba’s 21 game winning streak. Ralph was the Netherlands
second baseman and while he didn’t hit much in the seven games the team played
he did field his position flawlessly.
On November 16 it was reported that the Cleveland Indians
had signed Ralph; I assume the Padres had released him, but I found no
reference to that. He went to spring training 2001 with the Indians, and was
sent to their Class AAA team, the Buffalo Bisons of the International League.
But after five games with Buffalo Ralph decided he had had enough and went back
to the Netherlands, rejoining his old team there. He starred for the Dutch team
in the 2001 Baseball World Cup and in the 2004 Athens Olympics, then after the
2008 season he retired as a player. Since then he has been prominent in
coaching in the Netherlands.
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