Hard Coal Baseball - Hall of Fame Edition

Before They Were Famous They Played Here...

by Rich Lipinski

In January the results of 2022 Hall of Fame vote will be announced. This year’s ballot is crowded with players who made their home in NEPA for all or parts of a season in Scranton. Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins and Scott Rolen played for the Red Barons on their way to the majors. Curt Schilling, Roger Clemens, and Alex Rodriguez all made rehab appearances for the local team. There is a good chance for a variety of reasons that none of them will make it to the Hall. However only 9% of the over 22,000 MLB players played the required ten years to be on a Hall of Fame ballot. These players do represent the rarified air of MLB all time greats.

NEPA has seen its share of locally born or players who played in the area and eventually made the Hall of Fame. Two players who had successful appearances in our area went on to the ultimate recognition in other sports. Ken Strong and Nathaniel "Sweetwater" Clifton played professional baseball in our area and went on to become Hall of Famers in other sports.

Ken Strong

Ken Strong was a Hall of Fame running back and kicker for 12 seasons in the NFL, and he was the hero of the 1934 Championship game when he scored 17 points in the New York Giants 30-13 win over the Chicago Bears. The aftermath of a wrist injury prevented him from starring in the major leagues. A football and baseball star at New York University, Strong played the 1929 season at New Haven in the Eastern League before joining the NFL’s Staten Island Stapletons in September.

In 104 games at New Haven, Strong hit .283 with 21 home runs. After hitting .272 in 27 games at New Haven in 1930, he was sent to Hazleton in the New York Penn League. Strong hit .373 with 41 home runs in 117 games at Hazleton. On June 8th he hit four home runs in a game. According to SABR researcher Bob McConnell, Strong was the 24th professional player to achieve this feat. On June 7th he hit three home runs, for a total of seven home runs over two days. The 41 homers still remain as the single season record for the Eastern League, a season he started late and left early to play football.

He was considered a top prospect and his contract was purchased by the Detroit Tigers who sent him to Toronto in the International League in 1931.At Toronto he was batting .340 through 118 games when he broke his wrist. Strong underwent a surgical procedure in Detroit which included the removal of part of his wrist bone and was limited to kicking during the 1931 NFL season.

Strong was given a good shot at making the Tigers opening day roster, but he was slow to recover from the surgery. When the Tigers sent Strong to New York for a second surgery, it was discovered that the wrong bone had been removed during the first procedure, permanently damaging Strong’s wrist.

In 1933 Strong sued that doctor for $250,000, the equivalent of more than $4.4 million today. Strong claimed the surgery robbed him of the opportunity to play major league ball and limited his ability in the NFL. Strong was awarded $75,000 and the verdict was upheld on a later appeal.

He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1967. Strong died in New York City on October 5, 1979.

Nathaniel “Sweetwater” Clifton

Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Clifton’s family moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he became an outstanding basketball and baseball player at DuSable High School, graduating in 1942. He attended Xavier University of Louisiana and then served with the United States Army for three years, fighting in Europe during World War II. Clifton claimed to have been given the nickname "Sweetwater" as a boy because of his love of soft drinks.

After the war, Clifton joined the New York Rens, an all-black professional basketball team that toured throughout the United States. Noted for his large hands, which required a size 14 glove, he was invited to join the Harlem Globetrotters, for whom he played from the summer of 1948 to 1950. His performance with the Globetrotters, in particular his exceptional ball-handling ability, led to his signing a contract with an NBA team.

In 1948 after seeing Clifton play softball Bill Veeck signed him to a professional contract for the Cleveland Indians. Veeck the ultimate promoter, signed Clifton as a baseball experiment. Veeck wanted to prove he could convert an excellent athlete from another sport to a top-notch performer. When he signed Clifton had not played a game. In his first year in Pittsfield and Dayton he hit 17 homers and batted .321. In 1950, Clifton was sent to the Wilkes-Barre Indians. He led his club with a .304 average and 13 homers. Veeck was ready to send him to the Pacific Coast League in 1951, but Clifton decided to depart for basketball. While moonlighting with the Harlem Globetrotters he returned to Artillery Park in 1954, playing in front of over 5,000 fans.

On April 25, 1950 the 1950 NBA draft was held; Clifton became the third AfricanAmerican player to be drafted by the NBA after Chuck Cooper and Earl Lloyd. He played his first game for the New York Knicks on November 4, four days after the debut of Capitols Earl Lloyd, the first black player to appear in an NBA game. Already 27 years old when he made his debut, Clifton helped lead the team to its first-ever appearance in the NBA finals, losing in game seven. During his eight seasons in the NBA, Clifton averaged 10 points and 9 rebounds per game. He was named to the 1957 NBA All-Star team, scoring 8 points in 23 minutes in the game. At age 34, he became the oldest player in NBA history to be named an All-Star. After retiring from the NBA in 1958 he joined the Detroit Clowns baseball team in the Negro Leagues, along with his former Harlem Globetrotters teammate Goose Tatum. He died in 1990 and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014.

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Sources for this article include baseball reference, newspapers.com, and sabr.com