The Deep South Class D Webpage

Website created, designed and maintained by Scott Parks.

His family and friends mourned the loss of a warm, intelligent, hard working patriarch, and the Baseball world acknowledged the passing of a minor league pitcher who holds a rather uncomfortable place in the history of the game. Most of you who noted Jack's passing know of him because of a one single deadly fastball thrown by Clifton on June 2nd, 1951. which struck Dothan outfielder Ottis Johnson in the temple, and lead to his untimely death eight days later. For the foreseeable future, Jack Clifton will always be the answer to the Baseball trivia question, "Who was the last pitcher in organized baseball to kill a batter with a pitch?" The story of the tumultuous 1951 Alabama-Florida League season was one of the pieces of history that lead me to create this web site. I sometimes wonder if I might have done a disservice to the Clifton and Johnson families by reviving a tragedy that was forgotten, except in the minds of an ever-diminishing group of elderly Georgians, Floridians, & Alabamians. Jack Clifton never forgot that pitch. He had to bear the burden of his legacy for 56 years.

Jack during his 1941 season

in Goldsboro, NC

The last chapter of a fascinating piece of baseball history was written on January, 9th, 2007 when Harry Repard "Jack" Clifton passed away.

A TRIBUTE TO HARRY "JACK" CLIFTON

Jack told me in 2003 that not a day passed that he didn't think about that pitch. It hung over him like a cloud, dimming some of the brilliance of all that he accomplished in his long life. Despite the pain and tragedy that engulfed the families of both pitcher and batter and the communities of which they were a part of, that single pitch came to define what kind of man Jack Clifton was. It was a monumental, critical turning point that tested his strength, his character, and his faith. There were those who publicly conspired to portray Jack Clifton as a villain: A ruthless headhunter with a reputation for "dusting" a batter who stood too close to the plate. That Jack Clifton existed only in myth. In reality, Jack pitched in an era where brush backs were a common part of the game of baseball. "Purpose pitches" were fairly commonplace in Clifton's era, and although most brush backs did no harm, there were some injuries, sustained by batters who chose to challenge a pitcher for his share of the strike zone. In that era, a baseball player on deck when a Home Run was hit could almost guarantee a retaliatory dusting. A batter who bested a pitcher in his previous at bats often would often receive a "message pitch" his next time at the plate. This is not to suggest that any pitchers tried to injure batters. A pitchers intent on winning, intent on keeping his very livelihood, would use all the tools available, both physical and psychological, to gain the advantage over the batter. To push a batter out of his comfort zone was, and still is, a fundamental strategy of baseball. The fact that injuries do occur should not equate evil intent. In truth, we prefer to put ball players into the black and white world of good and evil, heroes and villains. So within this framework, the baseball fans and newspaper readers in the Wiregrass region likely believed Jack Clifton to be a bad guy.

I learned of the Jack Clifton / Ottis Johnson incident through accounts in the archives of local papers, and through an account in the book, "The Last Rebel Yell" by Ken Brooks. I must confess, when I first read the story and saw Jack's microfilmed picture in the newspapers, I imagined him as a large, humorless, hard-nosed man. His serious countenance in the stock photo made him resemble a tough guy who would have no trouble stirring up an on-field ruckus by knocking down the opponent's best hitter. That was the notion I created of Jack in my mind. The real Jack Clifton wasn't a tall, muscular, hard guy. Jack was average sized with a slender but athletic build. He stood 5' 09", weighing 165 pounds. He was a southpaw with a very good fastball, who could pitch back to back games if needed. Jack was a native son of Georgia, born in Lyons, in 1918. He graduated from the University of Georgia in 1940, and then played both professional and semi-pro baseball in North Carolina and Virginia and Florida. With the responsibilities of the war effort in full swing and youth rapidly slipping away, the prospects of becoming major leaguers faded quickly. Jack settled in Blakely, Georgia, where he got a job at the Farmers' Gin & Warehouse Company. Jack still played ball when he could fit it into his work schedule, and he soon was making a name for himself in baseball circles by pitching for and managing the semi-pro Blakely Tigers to a 1949 Flint River League championship. It was because of his performance in the Flint River League that the Headland Dixie Runners came calling in 1951. The Runners offered Jack as much as a Class D team could put together: Top pay, a flexible schedule, permission to travel to away games on his own, and just about whatever other perks that he needed. Clifton was destined to be the ace of the Dixie Runner pitching staff. Some players weren't skilled at anything but baseball but Jack was a businessman first, a ballplayer second, and he set the terms by which Headland could engage his services. Headland manager, Bubba Ball knew that Clifton was worth the effort to sign him, and as the season began, a deal was consummated

Jack Clifton was the league's dominant pitcher on the league's best team in 1951. He won 22 games, losing only 7. He lead all Alabama-Florida League pitchers in Wins(22), Win percentage (.786), Strike outs (245), Walks(194), Wild pitches(12), and Hit batsmen (12). He was an offensive threat too. He batted .304 in 61 games, playing outfield on the occasions when he wasn't pitching. Even so, all those numbers don't really tell you about Jack Clifton.

What made Jack Clifton special was his character. The morning after the game, Clifton went to Moody Hospital to see Johnson. Clifton was unable to talk to Ottis because he hadn't regained consciousness but he expressed his sympathies and concern to both Ottis' wife, Louise, and ballplayer brother, Edsel. The Johnson family clearly felt that the beaning was an accident, and they made a public statement asking that Clifton not be vilified for the incident. Clifton continued to play baseball, not missing any Headland games, and his very next start was a 19-2 no-hitter against Panama City. Johnson, hospitalized with a skull fracture and in serious condition, grew worse as his brain swelled from the trauma. In a more modern hospital, with more experienced physicians, Ottis might have been able to pull through, but his condition worsened as days passed, and he died on June 10th. After the funeral, which Jack attended, a barrage of accusations and threats aimed at banishing Clifton from the league, sprouted up in Tallahassee, Panama City, and especially Dothan. Sam Smith, owner of the Dothan franchise, demanded that Clifton be banned from the league, and Smith stated publicly that he would forbid his team from taking the field against Headland as long as Jack Clifton was still on the roster. Smith went so far as to disband the Dothan franchise in protest of Clifton's continued eligibility. Other owners either tried to hold things together or used the incident as an opportunity to cut their own losses and bail out. The league was on the brink of collapse, but with the help of Stuart X. Stephenson, George Trautman's representative, the AFL managed to weather both the Johnson/Clifton incident and an umpire strike later in the year that once again threatened to tear the league apart. Jack Clifton finished the 1951 season, on the same Headland team he began with. He was the league's best pitcher and there were a lot of pitches left in him, but he knew in his heart that this would be the end of his professional career. Johnson's death would dim his desire to compete at the professional level. Clifton went back to just being a manager at his job, occasionally playing some local baseball, and he raised his family in Blakely. The Johnson family would remain in his thoughts. In fact, Jack would develop a friendship the Johnson family that lasted all the way up until Jack's passing. "We have not blamed anything on Jack," Edsel Johnson said. "We knew it wasn't on purpose. We don't hold a grudge. We still love Jack".

The two families, brought together by tragedy, bonded and built a strong friendship that endured through the years.

And so, Jack Clifton passed away in January of 2007. I was contacted by Jack's family, and I went online and find Jack obituary. In the Dothan Eagle, the online obituary for Harry "Jack" Clifton contain a web page where family and friends could leave remembrances. I was the second person to write a farewell note to Jack. The first name on the list was that of John Ottis Johnson, Jr. He wrote: May God bless the family of Mr. Jack Clifton, a truly wonderful man.

Clifton as Player-Manager of the 1948 Blakely Tigers of the Flint River League

As star pitcher for the 1951 Headland Dixie Runners

After the 1951 beaning death of Ottis Johnson

Photographed for an article in the Dothan Eagle - 1995

Jack and myself at his home in Blakely in 2003