Clifford "Cliff" Brantley (born April 12, 1968) is an American former

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Mod ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

, who played in

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

(MLB) for the

Philadelphia Phillies The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. Since 2004, the team's home sta ...

in and . In 34 career big league games, he had a 4–8 record with a 4.25

earned run average In baseball statistics, earned run average (ERA) is the average of earned runs allowed by a pitcher per nine innings pitched (i.e. the traditional length of a game). It is determined by dividing the number of earned runs allowed by the number ...

(ERA). Brantley batted and threw right-handed. Brantley's father, Cleophas, was a star football player in Mississippi and

New York Police Department The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...

officer and his mother, Margaret, was a star basketball player in North Carolina. Brantley starred in baseball and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

Port Richmond High School Port Richmond High School is a public high school on the North Shore of Staten Island, New York City, New York. It is located in the Elm Park neighborhood, at 85 St Josephs Avenue between Innis Street and Charles Avenue. It has approximately 10 ...

in Staten Island. He accepted an athletic scholarship to attend

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

but chose to forego his commitment in favor of playing professional baseball. Brantley was drafted by the Phillies in the 2nd round of the 1986 Major League Baseball draft. Brantley's son, also named Cliff, played

college baseball College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional pl ...

for

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

and Adelphi before playing several years of minor league baseball.

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1968 births Living people Philadelphia Phillies players Major League Baseball pitchers African-American baseball players 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American sportspeople Baseball players from Staten Island American expatriate baseball players in Canada Clearwater Phillies players Ottawa Lynx players Reading Phillies players Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons players Spartanburg Phillies players Utica Blue Sox players Rutgers School of Law–Newark alumni Adelphi University alumni {{US-baseball-pitcher-1960s-stub