went 26–11 in 1913 at Class B Worcester, but the workload led to a sore arm; two years later, he retired. Handsome, affable, and educated, he enjoyed success in sales in the lumber business, while he and his wife, Helen, raised two sons and four daughters. After moving to Tennessee, the family returned home in 1920, settling in St. Bernard, then to Gate City, Virginia, near the Tennessee border, where they remained for the rest of his life.
CHARLIE CASE
SEPTEMBER 7, 1879–APRIL 16, 1964
Major League Career
1901; 1904–1906
Time as a Red
1901
Position
PITCHER
AROUND THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY, the Greater Cincinnati area produced some fine Major League pitchers. Unfortunately, they produced them for the Pittsburgh Pirates, who won four pennants in the century’s first decade. Jesse Tannehill, Howie Camnitz, and Sam Leever were big pitching stars, but Charlie Case put in a couple of good seasons there as well.
It wasn’t that the Reds didn’t recognize talent. In those years, teams had no minor league affiliates where they could stash promising prospects until they were ready for the big leagues. If a hot prospect needed seasoning, teams risked losing them. And such was the case with Charlie Case, who grew up in Smith’s Landing, a tiny town on the Ohio River in the southeastern corner of Clermont County, where his father worked as a ferryman. In his late teens, he moved to Milford and lived with relatives while working as a railroad conductor and playing amateur baseball. A strapping six-foot, 170-pound lad, Case was known as one of the best amateur pitchers around, the ace of the Muldoons, one of Cincinnati’s top teams. The Clermont Sun noted in July 1901, “The secret of his success is … his splendid control of the sphere and his terrific speed.”
That year the last-place Reds had only one good pitcher, Noodles Hahn, and were grasping for help on the mound. They signed Case in late June, and he debuted against the Boston Beaneaters on July 5. Though he lost 4–3, The Sporting Life praised his performance, blaming the loss on errors by his teammates: “Case is a good pitcher but he does not possess the superhuman power to distribute brains to the men behind him.” The game summary continued with, “The young twirler was liberally applauded throughout the game and bore his honors modestly. If every game that the Reds have played this year had been as well pitched, there would be more victories on the right side of the percentage table.”
He started against the Giants a few days later, the Enquirer predicting that his “many friends and admirers” would attend the game. Those who did saw him beat the Giants 5–4, scattering seven hits. In the colorful sports-page patois of the day, The Sporting Life gushed, “Case is all the money” and also is “some pumpkins of a slab artist,” adding, “Case has height, speed and good curves and there is no reason why he should not make a star twirler in time.” The only knock on his first two performances was his fielding, which in those days was highly valued in a pitcher.
Still, he was the man of the hour for the moribund Reds. That feeling, however, didn’t last long. His next start was called after one inning due to rain, and in the one that followed he probably was praying for rain. He surrendered 13 runs on 18 hits to Philadelphia in a 13–1 loss. After just one bad outing, the team released his contract to the Indianapolis Hoosiers of the Western Association, even though they’d already begun promoting an exhibition game in Batavia on August 1, promising that Clermont County’s own Charlie Case would take the mound for the Reds.
He spent two years in the minors before he was signed by Pittsburgh, where in 1904 he went 10–5 with a 2.94 ERA in 141 innings. The next year, he threw 217 innings, posting a 2.57 ERA, but the workload may have been too much because the following year he started poorly and was sent to the minors, where he spent the next nine years, all of them at Class A, the highest level, winning 122 games.
After his career ended, he and his wife, Frances, settled in Chilo, a little town on the Ohio not far from where he grew up. They had no children, and he worked as a mail carrier for many years, passing away at the age of 84, another local boy who’d helped fill the pipeline to Pittsburgh.
BOB CLARK
MARCH 18, 1863–AUGUST 21, 1919
Major League Career
1886–1893
Time as a Red
1891
Position
CATCHER; OUTFIELDER
“NO BALL-PLAYER IN AMERICA HAS HAD TO CONTEND MORE AGAINST ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES THAN BOB CLARK,” the Enquirer opined on February 1, 1890. “He has been the victim of aches and ills of all kinds, yet he has kept a good record behind the bat and did well with the stick.” Clark did possess great talent as a catcher and did, indeed, suffer every season from illness and injuries. When he came to the Reds in 1891 after five years in Brooklyn, he was only 28, and hopes were high that his physical problems were behind him and that he would achieve the potential he flashed whenever he was healthy. He told the newspaper that he’d just returned from nine weeks at Hot Springs and, “I feel better right now than I have in two years.”
Clark was born during the Civil War in Covington, where he lived his entire life. As a teen, he played on amateur teams in northern Kentucky, and if he were sickly as a youth it was not reported. According to an 1888 article in the New York Clipper, he mostly played second base at the time, starring in games against rival Cincinnati teams, in which “he gained quite a reputation.”
That reputation led to a pro contract in 1885 with the Atlantas of the Southern League, where he primarily played catcher and right field. Though he hit just .219, his fielding must have been exceptional, as he was signed by the major league Brooklyn Grays (also called the Trolley Dodgers), who, according to the Clipper article, offered “a liberal outlay of money” to “obtain the prize.”
Like most catchers of that era, he missed games due to injuries, primarily to his hands, but Clark suffered more than his share. He also sat out due to various illnesses. Nevertheless, he remained a key player for Brooklyn, who became the Bridegrooms in 1888. Brooklyn won the American Association championship in 1889, which was Clark’s best year at the plate. He hit .275, 12 points higher than the team’s average. The following year, he missed even more time with injuries and his average dropped to .219 in another championship season, as Brooklyn took the top spot in their first year in the National League. Right before the following season began, Brooklyn, perhaps frustrated with his frequent inability to get on the field, sold him to the Reds.
Despite his February assurances that he was feeling better than he’d felt in years, his pattern of disability continued. He managed to play in just 16 games for a terrible Reds team that finished next to last and could have used an able man behind the dish. In 61 plate appearances, he hit just .111. Clark spent the latter part of the season taking the springs in French Lick, Indiana. That winter, he married the sister of former Baltimore Orioles second baseman Reddy Mack and decided he’d had enough of playing baseball. Instead, he took a job at a liquor store in Covington. But the game clearly was in his blood, and he returned to the National League as a utility player for the Louisville Colonels in 1893, seeing limited action.
During the next few years, he umpired in the Western League, hoping to get a job in the majors. He never got the call, however, perhaps due to a fight in 1896 with catcher Bill Wilson (of the Minneapolis Millers), who tried to grab Clark’s mask during an argument. Clark clobbered him with it. And then continued to pound him.
Perhaps realizing he wasn’t going to make it to the majors