April 30, 1952: Negro League star Buster Clarkson makes his National League debut for Boston Braves

It was a warm spring day in Pittsburgh as 2,861 fans filed into Forbes Field to watch two struggling teams, their hometown Pirates and the visiting Boston Braves. They were witness to the National League debut of an exceptional talent whose arrival was delayed by segregation: 37-year-old shortstop James “Buster” Clarkson of the Braves.1

Born in 1915, Clarkson was part of a generation of Black players who, after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947, played well in the affiliated minor leagues and Latin America but did not get much of a chance in the American or National Leagues.

Many teams integrated slowly, while those at the forefront were afraid to go too fast. Front offices could not ignore younger stars like Robinson or Willie Mays, but that didn’t mean they gave a fair chance to older players like Clarkson.

In some cases, Black veterans had to shave years off their ages to get a shot. Clarkson’s age was a popular story topic in the press, with guesses at the time of his Boston debut of 33, 34, 36, and “indeterminable.”2 His Braves teammate and 1950 NL Rookie of the Year Sam Jethroe, born in 1917, gave his birth year as 1922 during his baseball career, confirming his real age only after his retirement.3 Clarkson was the third-oldest former Negro League player to play in the AL or NL, trailing only Satchel Paige and Quincy Trouppe.4

It was fitting that Clarkson’s call-up, two weeks into the 1952 season, happened when the Braves were in Pittsburgh. Clarkson grew up about 30 miles from Forbes Field and earned all-Western Pennsylvania honors at halfback for Jeannette High School’s undefeated football team in 1932.5 After attending Wilberforce College in Ohio, Clarkson returned to Pittsburgh in 1938 to begin his professional career with the Negro National League’s Pittsburgh Crawfords, managed by future Hall of Famer Oscar Charleston.6

Clarkson played five seasons in Negro Leagues later regarded as major leagues – hitting .323/.402/.543 and making the 1940 East-West All-Star game – but he missed three years to military service during World War II. In 1946 Clarkson was one of the big stars the Pasquel Brothers attracted to Mexico, where he played parts of four seasons. He also regularly played winter ball in Puerto Rico. Across his entire career, Clarkson hit .315 with a .532 slugging average and 326 home runs.7

Finally getting a chance at affiliated ball in 1950 at age 35, Clarkson hit .302 with 7 homers in 59 games for the Braves’ Triple-A affiliate in Milwaukee. He topped that performance in 1951, hitting .343 with a .440 on-base average in 97 games. Milwaukee manager Charlie Grimm noted, “You can’t keep anyone out of the lineup who can hit like Clarkson.”8

Clarkson began 1952 in Triple A for the third season in a row. But the Braves opened the season with just four wins in their first 12 games, and manager Tommy Holmes called on Clarkson on April 28.

The Boston Globe reported that the move was to bolster the team’s right-handed-hitting options against lefty pitchers.9 Braves starting shortstop Jack Cusick was batting only .176 when Clarkson was called up, and Al Hirshberg, who covered the Braves for the Boston Post and The Sporting News, wrote that Clarkson “can hit and he can play short. … They need a punch and a spark and Clarkson might give it to them.”10

Clarkson arrived in Pittsburgh shortly before the April 29 opener of the Braves-Pirates series, a 5-1 Boston win that extended the Pirates’ losing streak to 10 games.11 An article in that day’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette heralded Clarkson’s arrival in the majors.12 The Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph noted: “Braves manager Tommy Holmes was astounded at the number of calls he had to answer from Jeannette when fans of that nearby city found out that Clarkson was on the way. They wanted to know if Buzz would get in the game.”13

The Pirates came into the April 30 game 2-12 and were approaching the franchise record of 12 straight losses, set in 1912.14 There had been rumors that manager Billy Meyer was going to resign.15 It didn’t help that the team looked helpless the day before as Braves starter Warren Spahn struck out 11, the highest total of the season so far.16

Attempting to end the skid, Meyer turned to veteran righty Murry Dickson. He also shuffled his lineup, moving shortstop Clem Koshorek to the leadoff spot and inserting George Metkovich at first base, hitting third.

Dickson started well, getting leadoff hitter Roy Hartsfield to ground out, striking out Jethroe – who had broken the Braves’ color line two seasons earlier in 1950 – and getting Earl Torgeson to fly out to center. His Boston counterpart, 21-year-old righty Dave Cole, wasn’t as lucky, walking the first three batters to load the bases with no one out for six-time home-run king Ralph Kiner. Kiner hit a run-scoring fly to right, but Cole got out of the jam allowing just the one run.

Cole walked two more in the bottom of the second but got through it with two strikeouts. His wildness continued in the third, with walks to Metkovich, Kiner, and Bill Howerton to start the inning. Cole had not allowed a hit but walked eight Pirates, and Holmes brought in Ernie Johnson, who got Joe Garagiola to ground into a force at second as Metkovich scored.

After Jack Merson popped out to short, Garagiola was thrown out trying to steal second. Through three innings, the Braves had allowed two runs without giving up a hit. Conversely, the Pirates had just two runs to show for twice loading the bases with no one out.

Through four innings, Dickson had allowed just a second-inning single to Sid Gordon. He retired the first two batters in the fifth, but the Braves broke through as 20-year-old third baseman Eddie Mathews, appearing in his 13th major-league game, hit a solo home run.17

Their lead was down to 2-1, but the Pirates answered in the bottom of the fifth. Metkovich started the inning by reaching on an error by shortstop Cusick and took third on Kiner’s double to right. After Howerton struck out, Garagiola was walked intentionally, loading the bases. The move backfired as Johnson walked Merson to plate Metkovich and George Strickland singled to score Kiner and Garagiola.

One out later, Koshorek singled to left, scoring Merson, and Ted Beard doubled to left, scoring Strickland. Lew Burdette, working largely in relief in his first full major-league season,18 came in to get the final out, but the Pirates had scored five runs – only two earned – to break it open at 7-1.

Pittsburgh put the game out of reach over the next two innings. In the sixth, Howerton tripled off new pitcher Bert Thiel, making his fourth and final major-league appearance, and scored on Garagiola’s fly out to make it 8-1. Metkovich’s 400-foot three-run homer to right-center field pushed the score to 11-1 in the seventh.19

Clarkson made his long-awaited debut in the eighth, after Ebba St. Claire hit a leadoff home run against Dickson and George Crowe batted for Cusick and flied out. With one out, Clarkson pinch-hit for Thiel and lined a single to center.

Hartsfield followed with a single to right. When the ball got through right fielder Howerton for an error, Clarkson came home to score.20 Two batters later, Torgeson homered, ending Dickson’s day and cutting the deficit to 11-5.

Clarkson stayed in the game at shortstop for the bottom of the eighth, with Gene Conley taking the mound as Boston’s fourth pitcher in just his third major-league appearance.21 Clarkson did not get a chance in the field. He batted once more in the ninth, against reliever Ted Wilks, and ended the game with a fly to left.

The lineup changes worked and the Pirates ended their losing streak.22 Metkovich’s home run23 and Boston’s sloppiness24 – two errors, four unearned runs allowed, 12 walks – were the most prominent stories the next day in the papers, though the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph highlighted Clarkson’s debut.25

Clarkson got only 27 more plate appearances in his major-league career, all in 1952. He started six games at shortstop and third base and hit .200/.310/.200. His only RBI came on May 27 and he made his last appearance on June 22. It is hard to determine how serious the Braves were about giving Clarkson a chance. Hirshberg commented that “Clarkson is around for temporary shortstop duty, but he doesn’t solve the problem.”26 The Braves eventually brought up Johnny Logan to play shortstop in 1952.

Meanwhile, Clarkson continued to hit. He had 242 at-bats in 1952 for Triple-A Milwaukee, hitting .318 with 12 home runs, good for a .990 OPS. In 1953 he hit .330 with Dallas in the Texas League. In 1955, at the age of 40, he hit .294 for Los Angeles in the Cubs system.27 He finished his professional career in 1956, hitting .269 across three levels. Between 1950 and 1955, the Braves or just about any other team could have used Clarkson. Given his performance and the slow pace of integration, it is clear the color of his skin played a role.

We are left trying to knit together a fantastic player’s career from fragments. We should also appreciate the perseverance it took to make an NL debut at age 37. Either way, the 2,861 fans who watched the Pirates beat the Braves on April 30, 1952, were some of the few who saw James “Buster” Clarkson play in the National League.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, and Seamheads.com for pertinent information, including the box score, play-by-play, and Clarkson’s statistics.

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1952/B04300PIT1952.htm

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT195204300.shtml

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/clarkbu01.shtml

https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=clark01bus

Notes

1 Some sources give Clarkson’s middle name as Buster; others regard it as a nickname. Clarkson is often referred to as Bus or Buzz.

2 Hy Hurwitz, “Brewers’ Clarkson, 33, Joins Braves as ‘Insurance,’” Boston Globe, April 28, 1952: Sports: 9; George Kiseda, “Clarkson’s Age OK’d by Barnes,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, May 4, 1952: 36; Myron Cope, “Jeanette’s Clarkson Joins Braves Here,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 29, 1952: 15; Al Hirshberg, “An Old Story for the Braves – Cold Decked by Weather,” The Sporting News, May 7, 1952: 12.

3 Bill Nowlin, “Sam Jethroe,” SABR Biography Project, accessed August 2023.

4 “Negro League Players Who Made the Major Leagues,” Center for Negro League Baseball Research, accessed August 30, 2023, http://www.cnlbr.org/Portals/0/RL/Negro%20League%20Players%20Who%20Played%20in%20the%20Major%20Leagues.pdf. As of 2023, Clarkson was still the 19th oldest player to make his American League or National League debut since 1901, according to a Stathead.com “Player Game Batting Stats Finder” search conducted on August 30, 2023.

5 Clarkson was born in South Carolina, but his family moved to the Pittsburgh area when he was 6 years old. In 1990 Jeannette High School named its baseball field after Clarkson. Marjorie Wertz, “Clarkson Made His Mark in Baseball’s Negro Leagues,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, May 7, 2012, https://archive.triblive.com/news/clarkson-made-his-mark-in-baseballs-negro-leagues/; Dave Mackall, “Jeannette Baseball Team Will Rely on Heart, Not Numbers,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, March 16, 2022, https://tribhssn.triblive.com/jeannette-baseball-team-will-rely-on-heart-not-numbers/; Paul Kurtz, “Press Announces Class AA-W.P.I.A.L. Grid Teams,” Pittsburgh Press, December 4, 1932: Sports 4.

6 Wertz, “Clarkson Made His Mark in Baseball’s Negro Leagues”; John L. Clark, “Craws Set for Opener,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 14, 1938: 7.

7 These statistics come courtesy of SABR member Adam Darowski, who is collecting stats for players who played extensively outside of affiliated baseball. They can be found here: Outsider Baseball Stats – Google Sheets.

8 Sam Levy, “Brewers Top Choice to Repeat as Champs,” The Sporting News, April 16, 1952: 22.

9 Bob Holbrook, “Holmes to Bench Jethroe, Marshall Against Lefties,” Boston Globe, April 28, 1952: 9. Hirshberg called the move one of “desperation” and noted that Clarkson “does not exactly fit in with the Braves new youth movement.” He referred to him as a “jolly go lucky athlete” and a “showboat.” Al Hirshberg, “An Old Story for the Braves – Cold Decked by Weather.” As for Clarkson’s style, Holbrook claimed that Clarkson was “best known for fielding a ball through his legs and throwing out the runner.”

10 Hirshberg, ‘An Old Story for the Braves.’

11 Les Biederman, “The Scoreboard,” Pittsburgh Press, April 30, 1952: 37.

12 Cope, “Jeanette’s Clarkson Joins Braves Here.”

13 Chilly Doyle, “1890 Not So Gay for Our Bucs,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, April 30, 1952: 24.

14 Les Biederman, “Rickey Stays with Boys on Burning Deck,” The Sporting News, May 7, 1952: 6. The Pirates also lost 10 straight in 1950. The overall club record was set in 1890 when the then Pittsburgh Alleghenies lost 23 straight from August 12 to September 2.

15 “Meyer Resignation Story Is Denied,” Franklin (Pennsylvania) News-Herald, May 1, 1952: 14.

16 “Major League Flashes,” The Sporting News, May 7, 1952: 21.

17 This was Mathews’ third career home run. He hit 509 more in his Hall of Fame career. He also managed the Braves, by then moved to Atlanta, in 1972-1974.

18 Burdette later became a mainstay of the Braves’ starting rotation, posting two 20-win seasons and winning three games in the Milwaukee Braves’ 1957 World Series victory over the New York Yankees. In 1952 Burdette started only 9 of his 45 games. In a rarity for his career, he was credited with more saves (7) than wins (6), though saves did not become an official major-league statistic until 1969.

19 “Meyer Resignation Story Is Denied.”

20 Jack Hernon, “Bucs Beat Braves, 11-5; End Losing Streak,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 1, 1952: 18.

21 Four days earlier, on April 26, the Boston Celtics had selected Conley in the National Basketball Association draft. Conley played professional basketball while continuing his major-league baseball career. As of 2023, he was the only professional athlete to play on championship teams in major-league baseball (1957 Milwaukee Braves) and the NBA (1959, 1960, and 1961 Boston Celtics).

22 “At Long Last,” exclaimed the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the day after. Pittsburgh won only 39 more games and finished 22½ games back of seventh-place Boston. The Pirates’ 42-112 record is the seventh worst in AL/NL history since 1901 (as of 2023).

23 Jack Hernon, “Metkovich Blasts Three-Run Homer,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 1, 1952: 18; Charles J. Doyle, “Metkovich Stars Against Braves,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, May 1, 1952: 24.

24 Hernon, “Metkovich Blasts Three-Run Homer”; Bob Holbrook, “Same Old Ailments Hurt Braves – Weak Defense,” Boston Globe, May 1, 1952: 14.

25 Chilly Doyle, “Jeannette Negro Star in Debut,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, May 1, 1952: 24.

26 Al Hirshberg, “Annual Story: Braves Fall Back on Sisti,” The Sporting News, May 21, 1952: 8.

27 Baseball-Reference does not have rate stats for Clarkson’s 1954 season.