Luckily, I’m doing a small project for the Brewers organization, and my buddy Jason over there was able to track an image of Ratliff in Brewers garb!
Ratliff was traded over to the Brewers from the Minnesota Twins for Phil Roof, and played 23 games for his new team to finish off the 1971 season.
He’d end up playing another 22 games for them in 1972, which would end up being the last MLB action he’d see in his Big League career.
Originally up in 1963 with the Twins as a 19-year-old, he was on a multi-player rookie card in the 1963 Topps set, then would have to wait all the way to 1970 for another card, sharing it with tragic figure Herman Hill.
I don’t know what happened after the 1972 season, but it seems that Ratliff never even played Minor League ball after that.
Anyone know what happened?
As it was, he finished his four-year MLB career with a .205 average over 145 games and 297 at-bats, with 61 hits and 12 home runs to go with 28 runs scored and 42 runs batted in.