Henry Clarke

Henry Tefft Clarke, Jr. (August 4, 1875 – March 28, 1950) was an American baseball player and coach, lawyer and politician. He played Major League Baseball pitcher for the Cleveland Spiders in 1897 and the Chicago Orphans in 1898. He was also a coach for the Michigan Wolverines baseball team. He later served as a Nebraska state legislator and railroad commissioner.

Early years

Clarke was born in August 1875 at Bellevue, Nebraska. His father, Henry T. Clarke, Sr., was a well-known merchant who served in the Nebraska territorial legislature. Clarke was educated in the public school at Bellevue until 1882. He attended the public schools in Omaha, Nebraska from 1882 to 1892. He graduated from Omaha High School in 1892 as the class valedictorian. He was brother to fellow player, coach Maurice Gordon Clarke.

Williams College

In 1892, Clarke enrolled at Williams College in Massachusetts and played on the college's varsity baseball team. In 1893, he made his debut in a victory over the Yale Law School. The New York Times reported: "Williams had a new pitcher, Clarke, '96 during the first half of the game. He did creditably but showed lack of experience." A later article made note of Clarke's pitching skills as a sophomore in 1894: "He will be remembered by Eastern college men for good work in the box his sophomore year at Williams College, when he gave Lewis a close rub for the position of 'Varsity pitcher.'" In May 1894, The New York Times reported that Clarke had been "fairly effective," except in the first inning, and hit a "beautiful home run" in a loss to Harvard.