Buzz Clarkson

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James Buster Clarkson (AKA Bus Clarkson)

Bats Right, Throws Right
Height 5' 11", Weight 210 lb.
School Wilberforce University
Debut April 30, 1952
Final Game June 22, 1952
Born March 13, 1915 in Hopkins, SC USA (or March 13, 1918 according to a couple sources)
Died January 18, 1989 in Jeannette, PA USA

[edit] Biographical Information

I'm not sure why Clarkson is listed here and in Total Baseball as "Buzz Clarkson." All the Negro League, Mexican League and minor league sources (except one) that I've found list him as Bus Clarkson, more fitting given that his middle name is Buster.

Clarkson's first season as a regular was with the Toledo Crawfords of the Negro American League. He hit .276, one of the better marks on a poor team and pretty decent for a 21-year old second baseman. A year later he became a star, moving to play shortstop for the Newark Eagles, a position usually filled by a Hall of Famer like Willie Wells or Monte Irvin. Clarkson hit .343, 3rd on his team behind Irvin and Lenny Pearson. His 9 homers tied him for Pearson for 2nd place in the Negro National League, 2 behind Hall-of-Famer Buck Leonard. Clarkson added another homer for Nuevo Laredo of the Mexican League, going 27 for 80 (.338) in limited time in Mexico.

In '41, Clarkson returned to the Mexican League, posting a .334 average. More impressively, he again finished second in his league in homers, knocking out 19, 14 behind Josh Gibson, who set the Mexican record that year. Clarkson slugged .598 and posted an OBP around .414 as one of the more dominant threats in a league that featured 5 future Hall of Fame hitters.

Clarkson returned to the Negro Leagues in 1942 and hit .328 as the shortstop for the Philadelphia Stars, just missing the top 5 in average. He then missed three years of his prime serving his country in World War II.

When Clarkson returned in '46, he again split a year between Mexico and the Negro Leagues. For the Philadelphia Stars that year, he hit .411 as the team's main third baseman but did not qualify to place among the league leaders in average (only teammate Frank Austin hit higher, at .454). For the Veracruz Blues Clarkson hit .298/.410/.580 in 37 games, homering 9 times. Compared to the major leaguers who played in Mexico in '46-'47, Clarkson more than held his own, outperforming many of the MLB hitters.

Clarkson spent a second full year in Mexico in '47. Again with Veracruz, he hit .303/.423/.518. He hit 17 homers, 5 off of the league lead, and stole 20 bases and drew 79 walks as a multi-purpose threat. The winter was rough for Clarkson, who only hit .198 in the Cuban Independent League.

With the integration of baseball, the 30-year old Clarkson was not a hot commodity compared to young up-and-coming black players. He signed on with the independent Provincial League of Canada in 1948 and hit .399 with 28 homers , leading his league in home runs after a couple near-misses.

In 1949, he returned to the dying Negro Leagues and hit .313 for his old Philadelphia team. In the East-West All-Star game that season, Clarkson hit 4th and played right field; he had previously made the game in 1940 as a SS.

In 1950, Clarkson finished his Negro League career and signed with the Braves, who assigned them to their Milwaukee Brewers farm club in the American Association. Clarkson hit .302/.384/.468 in his first taste of AAA baseball while manning third base primarily. He outhit future Braves SS Johnny Logan among others.

In '51, Clarkson played his second year for Milwaukee. He hit .343 with an OBP over .430 and a .466 slugging percentage and did a good job defensively at short. The Brewers won the AA pennant, the playoffs and then the Junior World Series. Logan was pushed to the bench, hitting .249 and slugging .365 as a poor backup to Clarkson.

1952 witnessed Clarkson finally make it to the major leagues, at the ripe old age of 37 (according to baseball-reference, 34 according to the site of the Negro League Baseball Players Association and the Mexican League Encyclopedia, which list his birthday as 3/13/18). The Braves gave him all of 25 at-bats to show his stuff and when he failed to get an extra-base hit and only had 5 singles, they decided that he had had his shot. While it makes sense, given his age, Clarkson could likely still have contributed to the Braves, who were about to lose pennant races the next 3 seasons. Fans or management might not have had patience for black players who started slowly and were too old to be realistic prospects, though. Clarkson was returned to Milwaukee and continued to dominate AAA. Playing for one of the greatest minor league teams ever, he hit .318/.452/.541, again far better than Logan (.301/.378/.507) - Gene Mauch also was part of the shortstop parade for the Brewers. Milwaukee won 101 games, capping 51 years in the AA before joining the majors in '53. No AA team ever won 100 games after that.

In '53, Clarkson fell to AA and played for Dallas of the Texas League - he continued to knock the cover of the ball, batting .330, slugging .528 with 18 homers and driving in 87 (I'm missing walk data for '53 and '54 - I assume he kept drawing lots of them). 1954 saw him again tear up the Texas League, clobbering 42 homers (leading the league), driving in 135, batting .324 and slugging .602 - not bad for a man who was either 36 or 39. [Clarkson drew 100 walks in 137 games (443 at bats) for Dallas in 1953 and he drew 104 in 157 games (543 at bats) for Beaumont in 1954]. Clarkson's Minor League Equivalencies (MLE) for 1953 are .302/.416/.473, a 135 OPS+ (it should be noted that we don't have park effects for the 1953 Texas League, so these MLEs were calculated using Bill James approach -- using relative run environment -- as explained in the 1985 Abstract).

Clarkson returned to the top tier of the minors in '55, this time with the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League. Playing third, Clarkson hit .294/.366/.443 - he would have still placed among the top 10 in OBP and slugging had he gotten enough plate appearances to qualify.

In '56, he played a handful of games in the PCL and hit well, drifted down to the Texas League again and did okay, then finished up in the Western League for Des Moines. He hit 18 home runs in his final season between the 3 levels, in 353 AB. He batted .278/.413/.522 for Des Moines in 60 games as the team's main third baseman.

Clarkson had hit 189 homers in his minor league career, despite spending 3+ years in the service and at least parts of 8 seasons in the Negro Leagues.

Rumor has it that Clarkson was once walked intentionally with the bases loaded in a Negro League game, but I can't find verification of this.

Sources: "The Mexican League: Comprehensive Player Statistics" by Pedro Treto Cisneros, "The American Association" by Bill O'Neal, "The Complete Book of Baseball's Negro Leagues" by John Holway, 1951-53 and 1957 Sporting News Guides, 1955 and 1956 PCL seasons for Diamond Mind Baseball by Stephen Davis, "Invisible Men" by Donn Rogosin, BTF's Hall of Merit Discussion website, Negro League Baseball Players Association website