Clay Fauver

One of the most unlikely pitchers in baseball history among the “One-Win Wonders” must be Clayton King Fauver of the National League Louisville Colonels. On September 7, 1899, at Pittsburgh’s Exposition Park, Fauver, appearing in his only game as a major leaguer, flustered the Pirates by giving up 11 hits and 4 runs (none of them earned) and tossing a complete game that ended with a 7-4 win for the Colonels. Perhaps more remarkable than the major-league career stat line which reads 1 win, 0 losses, and a 0.00 earned-run average is that at the time of his debut, Fauver was attending Western Reserve Law School in Cleveland.

Clay Fauver was born on August 1, 1872, in North Eaton, Ohio, about 30 miles southeast of Cleveland, the son of Alfred and Elizabeth King Fauver. He had four brothers, Lester, Louis, and twins Edward and Edgar, and a sister, Mabel. Clay, or C.K., as he was often called, and his family moved to nearby Oberlin (13 miles west) in 1892, where he attended Oberlin Academy, a private preparatory school. The following year, Clay entered Oberlin College and began an illustrious collegiate career as a student and athlete.1 His father, Alfred, a onetime Lorain County commissioner and mayor of Oberlin, modeled examples of public and community service that his children would emulate. Alfred and Elizabeth also raised “scholar-athletes” long before the term existed. 

Lester, the eldest child, became president of the Ohio Engineering Company. Edwin Fauver was director of athletics at the University of Rochester from 1916 to 1945 as well as a professor of hygiene/physical education and a college physician. The university’s acclaimed 5,000-seat athletic facility, Edwin Fauver Stadium, was built in his honor in 1930.2 Edgar, like his twin, a renowned football and baseball player at Oberlin College, also accomplished much, earning a medical degree from Columbia University in 1909 and an assistant professorship position at the school. In 1913 he left Columbia for Wesleyan University, serving as a coach in several sports and director of athletics while maintaining his roles as a professor and college physician. Interestingly, Edgar also had an athletic field and two undergraduate housing projects named in his honor – Fauver Field (1959) and Fauver Field Residence Halls (2005).3 Continuing the Fauver chronicle of service, sister Mabel became an admired high-school teacher.

On the Oberlin campus, Clay, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate in 1897, was manager of the yearbook, assistant editor of the student newspaper, and a member of the debate team, experiences that would portend a law career. Although he was popular among fellow students and instructors, Fauver’s fame derived chiefly from his success on the baseball diamond and, especially, on the football gridiron. An outstanding athlete and leader, C.K. captained the Yeomen baseball team in 1896 and the football team in 1893 and 1894. Still a player, Fauver nonetheless took on more responsibilities as Oberlin’s head football coach in 1896.4

Between 1892 and 1896 Oberlin was a football powerhouse, claiming victories over the likes of Ohio State and Michigan with Clay Fauver as a star tackle and halfback. Louis, his 24-year-old brother, was a teammate when he and C.K. were coached by the legendary John W. Heisman in two of those years. (Louis also achieved much success after his Oberlin years, establishing a law firm in Elyria, Ohio, after graduating from Dartmouth College and earning a law degree from Harvard Law School.) Interestingly, before graduating in 1895, Clay Fauver took over football head coaching duties for three weeks at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, becoming the first paid coach in school history while leading the Redskins to a 3-0 record. He also played in those wins over Wittenberg, Butler, and Cincinnati.

After graduating from Oberlin College in 1897, Clay Fauver began pursuing a law career, enrolling at Western Reserve Law School in Cleveland. At the time he could never have imagined getting a chance to appear in a National League baseball game. In one of the rarest of opportunities ever granted a former collegiate pitcher, particularly someone who had not played competitive baseball in a couple of years, Harry Pulliam, president of the Louisville Colonels, invited C.K. to be his starting pitcher for a road game against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday, September 7, 1899.

Going into the September 7 contest, the Colonels found themselves in ninth place, 29 games behind the Brooklyn Superbas, the eventual National League champions that year. Despite filling the 1899 roster with future Hall of Famers – Honus Wagner, Fred Clarke, and Rube Waddell – Louisville, for the eighth and final year as a major-league franchise, wound up near the bottom of the standings by finishing ninth. (The Colonels never placed higher than ninth among the 12 NL teams and ended up 11th or 12th in five of those eight years.)

Entering the September 7 game against Louisville, the 1899 Pittsburgh Pirates’ record stood at 61 wins and 59 losses, 22 games out of first place. Some of the more impactful players on the Pittsburgh roster, including first baseman Willie Clark and outfielders Jack McCarthy and player-manager Patsy Donovan, must have salivated at facing the unknown rookie. Adding a greater threat to Clay Fauver’s challenge, however, was his pitching rival that day. On the mound for the Pirates was one of the best pitchers of his era, Jesse “Powder” Tannehill, who that year posted a 24-14 record along with a 2.82 ERA. Tannehill would end his 15-year career with 197 wins, 117 losses, a 2.80 ERA, and clearly in the discussion for Hall of Fame consideration. He was also a fair hitter as his .255 lifetime batting average testifies.

The headline above the recap in the next day’s issue of the Louisville Courier-Journal read: “New Pitcher Was on Deck, His Identity Not Known, but He Is Not Peck,” followed by the drop head: “Clarke and Pulliam Refuse to Tell Who the New Twirler Is – He Is Not Waddell.” The reporter in his opening paragraph explains:

“A mysterious twirler won for Louisville to-day. On the score card he passed as Peck, but Pulliam was authority for the statement that the name is an assumed one and is worn to disguise one much better known in baseball business circles. Pulliam asserted that he was bound to protect the new twirler’s secret, and as Manager Fred Clarke was also uncommunicative the mystery remains unsolved.”5

The circumstances surrounding Clay Fauver’s summons to the mound remain murky. The 27- year-old was studying law at Western Reserve and would not receive his law degree until 1900. That Clay was asked to join the club for only one game is intriguing. How did the Colonels learn about his availability, interest, and, importantly, ability to pitch against a major-league team? Was the Louisville pitching staff depleted? Did the short train ride from Cleveland to Pittsburgh enter into the decision? The precise factors putting Fauver on the hill at Exposition Park may never come to light, but his extraordinary performance can at least be documented.

What was slated to be a doubleheader became one game because the train bringing the Pirates back home from Chicago experienced a three-hour delay. According to an account, “the local players did not wait for lunch, but were hauled to the park as soon as the train arrived.”6 Perhaps the completion of a late-season, long (four games) series on the road against the Orphans, the subsequent train snafu, and the missed lunch contributed to their poor play that day. However, as suggested by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette scribe’s sardonic recap, titled “Too Tired to Play,” the home team did not deserve much sympathy:

“It was probably just as well that Patsy Donovan and his Pirates did encounter a wreck on the Lake Shore road which delayed their arrival for a couple of hours, and therefore prevented a double header with the Louisville team. The Pirates had barely time to play one game, and goodness knows that one was enough for the 1,500 spectators. A second dose of the same kind of play would probably have driven the entire crowd to drink.”7

The Colonels, conversely, were a fresher adversary, not having taken the field the day before. The Courier-Journal reporter summarized the contest as follows:

Manager Donovan showed eagerness to get a victory by sending Tannehill in to do the pitching, but the star failed to stop the slugging of the visitors. Fred Clarke and Chief] Zimmer led the attack upon the southpaw’s benders with four hits each, but Mike] Kelly was not far behind, Tommy] Leach, Clarke and Billy] Clingman carried off the honors in the field.”8

The Pirates scored four runs in the first four innings on eight hits and two errors. After that, the Colonels improved their fielding and the pitching advanced, too, the consequence being that the locals failed to score again.9 But it was the 5-foot-10, right-handed “mystery” pitcher who grabbed, by far, the most attention. At game’s end, the name “Fauver” landed in the box score, revealing the Louisville pitcher’s true identity and his stunning performance – 9 innings, 0 earned runs, and a win. The Post-Gazette’s writer praised the performance by the Louisville pitcher, describing him as “a well-built young fellow, and he is going to make a reputation in the big league, because he knows something about the art of twirling. He has lots of speed, a good change of pace, and, better than all, a good head.”10

That reporter’s prediction for Fauver’s stardom would not come to fruition, of course. When the game ended, so did Clay Fauver’s career. Clay boarded a train bound for Cleveland to resume his law studies.

In the long run, however, it was the Pittsburgh franchise coming out on top. Mediocre play, poor attendance, and a fire that burned down the grandstand at Eclipse Park on August 12, 1899, contributed to the collapse of the Louisville NL franchise at the end of the year. And the immediate beneficiaries were the Pirates. Barney Dreyfuss, team owner of both the Pirates and Colonels, with Louisville President Harry Pulliam’s assistance, fashioned a trade with Pittsburgh by moving the team’s best players to Pittsburgh, including three future Hall of Famers – Rube Waddell, Fred Clarke, and Honus Wagner. In all, 12 players were sent to the Pirates while, in exchange, the Colonels received $25,000 and four players. Fred Clarke went on to player-manage and bench-manage (1914, 1915) the Pirates for the next 16 seasons, winning four pennants and a 1909 World Series championship over Detroit.11

Clay Fauver’s eventful pitching debut in the big leagues apparently motivated him to not step away completely from baseball. A year later, 1900, while keeping up with his law-school obligations, Fauver joined the American League Cleveland Lake Shores (officially Blues), formerly the Grand Rapids Rustlers, a minor-league franchise in the Western League. (In 1900 the league was renamed the American League.) In 1901 American League President Ban Johnson declared the league a major league. 

Managed by Jimmy McAleer, a Youngstown, Ohio, native and 13-year professional ballplayer, including nine years as a NL Cleveland Spider outfielder, the 1900 Blues, whose home ballpark was League Park, finished in sixth place out of eight teams with a 63-73 record. Clay Fauver played in exactly 10 games, winning four and losing six as a pitcher (no official record of his ERA exists), and in 34 plate appearances he had 7 hits for a .206 batting average. Judging from these stats, we might assume that Fauver appeared only in home games to balance the rigors of finishing his studies with his pitching performances.

Fauver’s limited professional baseball career may have ended in 1900 but not so his love of the game. After earning his degree from Western Reserve Law School that year, he began to practice law in Cleveland with two firms while teaching law at Western Reserve. In 1902 he coached the Western Reserve baseball team to a 5-6 record.

Fauver remained in Cleveland until 1916, when he moved to New York City, where he practiced import and export trade law and became vice president and general counsel of a renowned import-export company, Gaston, Williams, & Wigmore, and “an authority on legal matters concerning foreign trade.”12 He also formed the law office of Fauver, Albertson and Schoble before returning to his beloved Oberlin in 1933.13

Upon his return to Oberlin, Fauver, reflecting the commitment to service so much a part of the Fauver family DNA, seized one opportunity after another to better his community as Oberlin College’s investment executive and president of a local bank, Oberlin Savings Bank. The list also includes his role as trustee of both the First Church and Phillis Wheatley Community Center, plus a membership in the Exchange Club and Chamber of Commerce.

Reported in the March 5, 1942, issue of the Oberlin News-Tribune, the sudden death at age 69 of Clayton K. Fauver from coronary thrombosis in Chatsworth, Georgia, where he and his sister, Mabel, had stopped on their way to Sebring, Florida, must have shocked and saddened readers, despite Fauver’s being in poor health for some time. Following the front-page headline, they learn that

“Storm bound, Mr. Fauver and his sister had stopped Monday afternoon in Chatsworth and had stayed overnight at the hotel there. They had just eaten breakfast and were descending the stairs at the hotel, preparatory to continuing their journey, when Mr. Fauver was stricken. He died almost instantly.”14

On page two of the newspaper, Louis E. Lord, a close friend and college classmate, offered this reflection: “In the few hours that had since passed since I heard of his death, I have been constantly thinking that no one, literally no one, could be taken from this town who would be missed in so many ways. It will not be hard, it will be impossible, to fill his space.”15

Sources

Career statistics and player information from baseball-reference.com.

Thanks to Mike Risley and Wendell Jones from the Pee Wee Reese SABR Chapter in Louisville for finding the Courier-Journal recap and box score of the September 7, 1899, game between the Louisville Colonels and the Pittsburgh Pirates, and to Allie Petonic from the Forbes Field SABR Chapter in Pittsburgh for the Post-Gazette.

Notes

1 “C.K. Fauver Stricken in Georgia,” Oberlin News-Tribune, March 5, 1942, accessed March 13, 2021, http://dcollections.oberlin.edu/digital/collection/newstribune/id/872.

2 “Edwin Fauver Stadium,” University of Rochester Yellow Jackets, accessed March 10, 2021, https://uofrathletics.com/facilities/edwin-fauver-stadium/6.

3 Sarah Lippincott, “Retrospective on Fauver Field,” Wesleyan Argus, accessed March 10, 2021, http://wesleyanargus.com/2004/04/27/retrospective-on-fauver-field/.

4 “C.K. Fauver Stricken in Georgia.”

5 “New Pitcher Was on Deck,” Louisville Courier-Journal, September 8, 1899, accessed March 12, 2021, https://courier-journal.newspapers.com/clip/737668691/mark-here-is-the-report-in-the/.

6. “Too Tired to Play,” Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, September 8, 1899, accessed March 12, 2021, http://www.newspapers.com/image/85602358.

7 “Too Tired to Play.”

8 “New Pitcher Was on Deck.”

9 “New Pitcher Was on Deck.”

10 “Too Tired to Play.”

11 David Hill, “Pittsburgh Pirates History: Stars Transferred to Team from Louisville,” calltothepen.com. Accessed March 17, 2022, https//calltothepen.com/2016/12/08/.

12 “C.K. Fauver Stricken in Georgia.”

13 “C.K. Fauver Stricken in Georgia.”

14 “C.K. Fauver Stricken in Georgia.”

15 Louis E. Lord, “A Tribute to Clayton Fauver,” Oberlin News-Tribune, March 5, 1942, accessed March 8, 2021, http://dcollections.oberlin.edu/digital/collection/newstribune/id/873.