Rivals End Up Teammates

Five years ago, Adan Millan and Keith Pierce were catchers who played on rival college baseball teams.

Today, they are minor league teammates, supporting each other’s effort to make the majors.

When Millan was at Cal State Fullerton and Pierce at Long Beach State, their teams battled for Big West Conference titles and College World Series berths.

Now, they’re playing together for the first time with the Reading (Pa.) Phillies of the double-A Eastern League.

“The relationship has been good since Day 1,” said Millan, who also plays first and third base. “We both know our situation and we’re making the best of it. We both want to be better and we can feed off each other.”

Pierce, who is in his fourth season of pro ball to Millan’s fifth, said, “[Millan] has become a friend. I first talked with him in spring training a couple years ago. We’re always talking about handling pitchers and how to call a game. We help each other.”

Del Unser, the Phillies’ director of player development, said the organization is pleased with the progress both players have shown this year.

“Adan has done a good job catching and playing the infield, and he swings the bat pretty good,” Unser said. “Pierce has shown he is good gamer. Although his hitting has slipped, he has done a nice job handling the staff.”

Millan and Pierce didn’t know each other in college--”We did have mutual friends,” Pierce said--but that doesn’t prevent them from some occasional trash talk.

“He always brings up that they swept us in 1993,” Millan said. “And I remind him I owned the highest career average against Long Beach State. I always got hits against them.”

Said Pierce: “I don’t know about the average thing, but he did have good games against us. He was a good hitter. I had a couple good games against Fullerton, but I can’t remember when they were.”

Titan Coach George Horton remembered Millan as a self-made player who always competed to his limits.

“He’s in my top list of players I’ve coached for the effort he brought daily to the field,” Horton said. “It was an honest, team-based effort, not just what’s best for him. His work habits and intensity were a great example for the younger players.”

When Millan, 26, played at Fullerton, he was known as Adam Millan. He changed the spelling of his first name as Adan, which is Spanish for Adam, “because that’s how the Phillies wrote it on my paperwork when I signed.” Millan was selected by Philadelphia in the 28th round of the 1994 amateur draft.

If only the change from playing college ball to the pros was that easy.

In his first four seasons Millan has bounced between Class A Batavia (N.Y.) and triple-A Scranton (Pa.). This is his second stint in Reading, where he first played in 1995 before being sent to Class A Piedmont (N.C.) because of roster reductions.

Millan worked his way back to Reading last year, where, in 95 games, he batted .244 with nine home runs and 43 runs batted in.

Through 56 games this season, Millan is batting .289 with seven home runs and 38 RBIs. He had back-to-back big nights on June 7-8, when he drove in 12 runs against Bowie (Md.). Seven of those came on June 8, marking the second-highest one-game total in team history.

“The hardest lessons to learn in baseball involve patience,” Millan said. “You have to improve day in and day out. And patience has a lot to do with it. You can’t doubt yourself. If you do, you’ll find yourself on your way home.

“Right now, I believe I’m still developing into a better player. I don’t feel stuck. I had set a timetable of making the big leagues in four years. It’s good to have goals, but it hasn’t happened, though I feel pretty close. I do believe one day I will become a [major league] player.”

Pierce, 25, graduated from Westminster High in 1991. He was selected by Florida in the 31st round of the 1994 draft but returned to Long Beach for another year. In 1995, Philadelphia took him in the ninth round.

Like Millan, Pierce maintains his career is moving forward, even though it has taken him four years to reach the double-A level.

Part of Pierce’s problem has been injuries. In August, 1995, while playing for Batavia, Pierce suffered a separated left shoulder. In 1996 at Piedmont, he spent time on the disabled list with a sprained right knee.

He was promoted to Reading this year despite playing only 24 games for Clearwater (Fla.) in 1997. His season ended on May 8 when he suffered a fractured left leg in a home plate collision.

Pierce is currently on the disabled list with a sprained right elbow. Nonetheless he has set a career high this season in games played (70) while batting .248 with five home runs and 23 RBIs.

“In the pros you have to develop consistency, and it’s a grueling process,” Pierce said. “In college you played three games a week so it wasn’t so hard to stay intense. That’s not like playing 14 days with one off.

“I’m close to [being consistent], but I’m not there yet. I’ve had success, but it’s more two steps forward and one back. Out here it’s a learning process every day.”

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Bryn Wade is not a baseball name most people will recognize, but he is related to the closest thing the game has to royalty.

Wade is a third cousin of the late Jackie Robinson, who broke the modern-day color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Wade’s father, Keith, was a third-round pick of the San Francisco Giants in 1966, but a broken leg ended his career in 1969.

Born in Fullerton but raised in San Jose, Bryn Wade was a 49th round draft pick of the Angels in June. He began his pro career with the Class A Boise (Idaho) Hawks. But after batting .234 in 14 games, Wade was reassigned to the organization’s rookie ball team in Butte (Mont.).