RIP Horace Clarke

Long time Yankee infielder Horace Clarke passed away on Wednesday. The Yanks were not very good during the 9 plus years he spent with them. Two cards in ATG but ATG 9 has made them too expensive to use as cheap backups.

Long time Yankee infielder Horace Clarke passed away on Wednesday. The Yanks were not very good during the 9 plus years he spent with them. Two cards in ATG but ATG 9 has made them too expensive to use as cheap backups.

RIP Horace. One of my early favorites. I might have to nominate his 1969 card for the 20.4 card add.

BC15NY wrote:

RIP Horace. One of my early favorites. I might have to nominate his 1969 card for the 20.4 card add.

That is definitely his best year. He is one of 14 Major Leaguers from the U S Virgin Islands.

Two interesting things I read about Horace this week. (1) From 1967-1973, he was second in base hits in the AL (Yaz was #1) (2) in 1970 he broke up three no hitters, all in the ninth inning (Rooker, Siebert, Joe Niekro).

ratioman2 said:

Two interesting things I read about Horace this week. (1) From 1967-1973, he was second in base hits in the AL (Yaz was #1) (2) in 1970 he broke up three no hitters, all in the ninth inning (Rooker, Siebert, Joe Niekro).

Very interesting. Thanks for posting.

Maybe Fritz Peterson will ease up on him now. He's always called the Yankees period of decline "The Horace Clarke Era," when management became satisfied having players like Clarke who were "just good enough."

I remember Bill James writing somewhere that as players Horace Clarke compared favorably to Bobby Richardson. James observed that Clarke, who was one the Yankees better players during their down years, got the blame for their lack of success, whereas Richardson has the higher reputation because he rode the success of the great Yankee teams of his era.

The WAR system seems to bear this out. It gives Richardson a career WAR of 8.1 and Clarke a career WAR of 15.7.

Maybe Fritz Peterson will ease up on him now. He's always called the Yankees period of decline "The Horace Clarke Era," when management became satisfied having players like Clarke who were "just good enough."

The problem with those Yankee teams wasn't Horace Clarke. Gene Michael at SS, Danny Cater at 1b, Jerry Kenney at 3b, and a revolving door of stiffs in RF wasn't going to get it done.

One of those stiffs was Bobby Murcer, until he moved to center...he was ok

Clarke and Stottlemyre only bright spots of those late 60's early 70's yankee teams