That's when I started smoking. The first pack I bought was while I was living in that hotel room. Lucky Strikes. Turned out to be not so lucky for me. (Jack has emphysema). I played there about a month and a half. We had a pretty good ball club back there. They hired me because the year before, my freshman year, we had won 38 straight ball games. I won 4 straight games in two weeks, so they hired me to play with them the next season. We got into the Semi-pro tournament in Atlanta and I won the first game, on a Thursday night, then we had to play a team out of Lagrange, Georgia, the Calloway Mills team on Sunday. They had a Cracker Jack team. They pitched a guy against us that night who had been pitching in the Southern League with Memphis three weeks before. The manager wanted my brother to pitch that second game. I could have pitched it but he wanted my brother. They got 5 runs off him in the first two innings. then I went in to relieve him and shut them out the rest of the way. They ended up beating us 5 to 4. and knocked us out of the tournament. After we got back to Savannah and our season was over, a guy named Virgil Warren called me and wanted me to come up to Atlanta and pitch for the Warren Company, so I went up there and pitched 3 games a week for $35 dollars a week. They were a pretty big company. They made coolers back in the day before refrigerators. We had these big ice boxes and they called them coolers. They worked about 250 people at there. I worked a 40 hour week there too but I made $35 dollars instead of $12! I played with them for two summers. In 1940, I signed with the Goldsboro Gold bugs after playing semi-pro ball up in Erwin Ville, North Carolina... I played about 30 games at the end of the 1940 season, and then I played in '41 with them too. I'd been a pitcher up there but I pulled a muscle in my shoulder, so they told me not to pitch. After that I'd pitch an inning or two on the tail-end of ball games. Usually the laughers, you know a laugher one way or the other. I played outfield and hardly pitched at all for a couple years. I was hitting pretty well though. in fact, I lead the league. There was an infielder with Wilson named Earl Carnahan. We had quite a battle (for the batting title) for a while there. Goldsboro played against Wilson, Tarboro, New Bern, Rocky Mount, and Snow Hill. Snow Hill was the smallest town to have a baseball team. I never will forget that ballpark! There was a guy named Cowboy Mack Henry who was the manager at Tarboro. They had a pitcher from Brunswick, Georgia, named Gene Woods. Gene was had pretty good arm. He pitched for the Memphis Chicks later on. Gene was about 6'2" and about 140 lbs. All elbows and knuckles! This old boy, I think his name was Sandy Fields, was the catcher for Goldsboro, and Woods struck him out, and Fields was cussing about Woods. He said "That guy could eat grass through a picket fence!" He was thin!

SP: Did you generate any interest from the higher leagues?

JC: Yeah, they sold me to Richmond in the Piedmont League at the end of that season. I belonged to them. Ben Chapman was the manager there at Richmond, and he and I didn't get along, so he sent me to Burlington (North Carolina). I was hitting well over .300 when he farmed me out. I pitched about 5 ball games in Burlington at the tale end of that season; one of them was a no-hitter. I hit .302 there, I believe.

SP: What was Burlington like?

JC: I think the Mays family had something to do with the ball club up there. They owned stock in the Burlington mills. I got to know Jack Mays pretty good. He showed me all over Chapel Hill. He lived in a mansion up a private street, a big four-column house with a fish pond in the front yard. While I was at Burlington, we played against Wilson, who had to be in the Coastal Plains League, Bill Herring was managing them. He was a good pitcher who had pitched in the International League the year before. There was also a franchise in South Boston, Virginia, and in Reidsville, North Carolina. I had a shortstop hit two homers off me in Reidsville that year. His name was Bud Preister. I remember that very well! I won 5 games and lost none that year. My memory of 40 years ago is better than my memory of yesterday!

Then in 1943, I was sent back to Richmond. When I came back, Chapman was gone. . After that, I played ball for the St. John's Shipyards in Jacksonville, Florida. We played against some darn good players back there Steve Nagy, the left-hander for the White Sox., and father of Charles Nagy, who pitched with the Indians, was managing and pitching for Naval Base in Jacksonville when I was pitching for St. John Shipyards. His team won the city championship in Jacksonville. Charlie Gehringer also managed that Naval Air Station team when they had Ted Williams, Bob Kennedy and Alf Anderson, who played shortstop with Pittsburgh all playing on that team. Alf played at the University of Georgia.

I played about a month before it started to look like I was going to have to go into the service. I went back home to be close to my family and took a job in a shipyard. They got me a deferment.

SP: That was St. John's Shipyard in Jacksonville?

JC: Yes. I started back pitching regularly with their team. The shipyard they had a pretty good ball club. Mercer Harris was the manager. He was an old Cardinal farm hand. He's dead now, but he's the one that got me started back pitching. My arm had come back real good.

SP: After your time with the shipyard team, you played semi-pro ball in Greenwood, South Carolina.

JC: Greenwood was in the Ogeechee League. I played for both Greenwood, and Thompson, Georgia. I played all summer with both of them. Those teams were mostly college boys. I first ran into Al Worthington there. He made it to the big leagues with the Minnesota Twins. He was a good pitcher, a real cracker-jack. :. Thompson was right outside of Augusta, Georgia, about 35 miles away. I played there in 1945 and 46. The reason I left Thompson in 1946 was they broke up the Ogeechee League and Thompson got out of the league and entered a league up there that was no competition. When I left Thompson, I was 22-2! All the good ballplayers were in Metter, Statesboro, and Glennville, so I told them I was leaving. My brother Bo stayed with them for the rest of the year. I left and went to Glenville where I was player-manager in 1947-948. You know, I never managed a club that wouldn't let me hire the players myself. You've got to be able to do that for the simple reason that if you don't control all those salaries, especially with those college boys, the players get to talking and you get problems. I never had problems with my players concerning money, but I've seen it tear ball clubs to pieces. When I was at Thompson, they paid me $35 a game to manage, play and pitch one game a week. We didn't play but three games a week, so I was also pitching up in Greenwood, South Carolina at the same time. I'd pitch a game a week up there. I'd pitch up there on Saturday night because we didn't play in the Ogeechee League on Saturdays.

SP: Did the Thompson management object to you moonlighting up in Greenwood?

JC: Yeah, they cared, but they didn't have any control over what I did on my free days! I never shortchanged them. But I did get caught in a situation during the 1946 playoffs. I was scheduled to pitch for Thompson in a playoff game on Monday afternoon and I had pitched 12 innings up at Greenwood on Saturday night. The playoff was against the Metter, Georgia team at Metter. Well, tired or not, I had to pitch that game too, but I won it, 1-0! Metter had two real good pitchers and both were ready to pitch. One was a guy named Dale Livingston. He was a fine pitcher but I beat him in that Monday afternoon game. The other pitcher was named Joe Chamberlain. Livingston had pitched for Gadsden and the Atlanta Crackers, and Chamberlain had pitched for Savannah and Charleston, so both of them had some high level experience.

SP: You the left the Ogeechee League and played for Blakely in the Flint River League.

JC: Yes, I came here (to Blakely) in 1949 after playing in Glennville, also in the Ogeechee League. I left because I didn't think that Ogeechee league was going to operate anymore. They had a big blowup in the 1948 playoffs. It happened in our ballpark, but we weren't to blame in it. There was a seven-game playoff and it was the seventh game, tied 4 to 4 in the 8th or 9th inning, and there was a close play at the plate that went against the (Wrightsville) ball club and they had a big fuss. Their pitcher, whose name was John Duncan, hauled off on the umpire. The Glennville fans didn't like him no way; he was a crowd-baiter, so things just erupted. There was a big riot and it was so bad that I thought it would break up the league. I felt it was time to make my move, so the next season I came here to Blakely. I guess it was a smart move: Glennville and Wrightsville both voluntarily left the league next season, but they probably wouldn't have been allowed back anyway.

SP: The Flint River League had the reputation of being a pretty competitive league.

JC: It was a better league than the Alabama-Florida League. The Flint River League had some good college boys. I'm talking about good pitchers, not throwers. Boys as good as I was or better. They could throw hard and throw strikes.

My brother (Bo Clifton) joined me on the Blakely team. Willard Nixon had promised to play in the league but he never did get down here. Al Worthington was pitching up at Cuthbert. Cuthbert also had a boy, a sergeant out of Fort Benning that was a real good pitcher too, He was a side-wheeler, about 6'4", and he could really bring it up there! I managed and played for Blakely, and got a good job when I wasn't playing, so I stayed here. I've been living here ever since.

SP: In 1951, you joined the Headland team in the Alabama-Florida League. How did you get involved with the AFL?

JC: Well, I pitched for Blakely in 1949 and 1950. In 1951, I was working at my job and not really thinking about playing organized ball anymore. A friend of mine who was a salesman, called on me several times at work, was he was the one who got me to go to Headland and pitch. I agreed to do it but on my terms. The Headland team was a good one. They had Bubba Ball as the manager, and some great hitters in Al Rivenbark and John McPherson. McPherson was one of the best hitters I've ever seen in baseball

SP: He batted over .400 for Headland in 1950...

JC: He was just a terrific hitter.

SP: What was it like playing for Headland? They were the smallest city with a professional team at the time. What kind of crowds did they have?

JC: We'd have 300-400 people there most every night. A lot of regulars too. That's not too bad for a league like that.

The team traveled to games by bus, but I didn't ever ride it myself, didn't have to. I told the Headland owners when they signed me, I've got to get home by 12:00 or 1:00am, and I can't be riding that bus to Tallahassee or Panama City. I've got to be at work. I was able to drive myself to the games and they'd pay me some mileage. I still played ever game, but I left on my own after. I'd have to leave work about 4:30 to get to Panama City for a game. That was a tough drive sometimes but I didn't have too much trouble. I conditioned myself to make the drive and pitch and come back. Some of the parks were not up to snuff. That park in Panama City was pretty bad. We had some better semi-pro facilities. A town that size should have a better park. The ballpark at Tallahassee was a football field. If you hit the ball to left or center, you'd hit it into the concrete stands. It was a municipal stadium. If I'm not mistaken, it was called Leon County Stadium. They did have good lights there. I don't think I ever played a day game there. The only day games we played were on Sundays.

SP: Were you the number one starter for Headland?

JC: Yes. We were by far the best team in the league. A. D. Walden was president of the ball club. He ran a Ford dealership over there. He was a nice fellow. A couple of the team officers were into the peanut business like me. I knew them real well. They were great friends with my boss. There were some good players like McPherson: Billy Williams was a pitcher from up at Phenix City. Tommy Stone was a good pitcher too. He had good curve ball. Lindy Money played some with us. He was a good high school pitcher that threw his arm away. He pitched a few games, played the outfield. He could hit, too. Williams, Stone, and I won 66 games between us on a 120-game schedule. We had a few other pitchers come and go. Some of them I never got a chance to know. Red Glover was the second string catcher and Aubrey Baker was the starting catcher. Herb Marshall was a good ballplayer too. He was our second baseman. Leon Hilyer was our shortstop. Al Rivenbark played first base and outfield, and had played for me in Blakely the year before. He lived in Columbia, Alabama. He's dead now. Aubrey Baker played for me in Blakely too. He's dead now too. He didn't have a strong arm and didn't look good behind the plate, but he'd still throw you out. He was just a winner, that's all. Glover was a better catcher, but he just couldn't get that hit when you needed it. You put Baker up there with a man on second and he'd bring him in. He never hit over .250 in his life, but he was just a winner. A lot of good players went through that league. Lindsey at Dothan was a good ballplayer. He was a big fellow, tough too. There were only four hitter in the league that ever gave me any trouble: Emory Lindsey, who was catcher and manager at Dothan, Chuck Quimby, the manager over at Tallahassee, Chase Riddle, the manager at Ozark, and John McPherson, who played with me so I didn't have to worry about him. Those boys were good hitters. You had to have something on the ball to get them out. Emory Lindsey used to manage down in Donalsonville in the Flint River League in 1949. He had a good ball club down there. We (Blakely Tigers) beat them in the playoffs that year. We never had a country club around here (Blakely), so I used to play golf at Dothan Country Club and I'd run into Emory over there two or three times a summer. Emory was running a pawn shop in Dothan after baseball. He was a good fellow and a good pool shark. He's dead now. The ones that gave me trouble are the ones that made you throw strikes. The ones that would never help you out off that plate. They made you throw strikes.

SP: What was your best pitch?

JC: I had a good curve ball, but four out of five pitches were fastballs. There were no such things as some of these names they use today. Just breaking ball and fast ball.

SP: You struck a lot of guys out that year.

JC: I threw the ball pretty well. We didn't have the radar to see how fast you could throw so we could only compare to the other guys.

SP: Compared to the others, were you one of the fastest?

JC: I was probably the fastest in the league that year. Tommy Stone was probably next. I figure he threw maybe 90 mph. I probably threw about 94 mph. That's just a guess.

SP: You were allowed only one or two experienced players in the AFL at that time, right?

JC: in a Class D league, the team ain't any better than the number of "Classed" men each team is allowed.

You'd have "Classed" men, limited-service men, and rookies. In most Class D leagues, you had to carry eight rookies. That only leaves you about five limited-service men, and two, sometimes only one, veteran. Some leagues allowed three veterans. You became a veteran when you completed a certain number of days playing professional ball. My playing experience over three seasons added up to where I was considered a veteran, but I had only played one full season (1941) and part of two others. They ruled me a veteran anyway. I'll bet it was Ball, McPherson and I that were the veterans on that team. The limited service men were probably Marshall, Hilyer, Glover, and Roger Farrar. Farrar didn't play with us long. When we got Pettis, we had to make a move to get rid of a limited service man, so we replaced Farrar with Pettis, who was a rookie. Gordon Pettis lived out in the country over here, and when he got out of school his senior year, they signed him up and put him on third base and let Farrar go.

SP: Do you mind talking about the Ottis Johnson incident?

JC: Ottis Johnson was a Class D .300 hitter with a lot of power. He wasn't a real good hitter. He was about 6'2", maybe 200 pounds. He was strong and a good athlete, he just wasn't a good hitter. He was a hard swinger, but I never did have that much trouble getting them hard swingers out. Well, I guess the best way to say it is he just walked right into the ball. I pitched him the way everybody pitched him: Either kept the ball away from him, or got it in high and tight. If he could get extended on the ball, he could kill you. He was a strong fellow.

SP: It seems like the Dothan owner blamed you, but nobody else did...

JC: James "Bubba" Ball was manager. Bubba did a lot of talking about that thing (the Ottis Johnson beaning). There might not have been as much with Charles Smith (Dothan's owner) and the Dothan Eagle if Bubba had kept his mouth shut. I don't know...He was a big talker though. He was a good ballplayer and a likeable fellow but he liked to hear himself talk. He had a negative impact (on the event). Kept it from dying down. He got a lot of media attention, that's what he liked, you know. I got nothing against him, but I knew him that way from other people that played ball with him. That Dothan owner, Smith, wouldn't let the thing die down. He wasn't really a Dothan man, he was from Slocum. He had more money than he had sense.

SP: Chase Riddle told me about the incident....

JC: Chase can give you a good account of it. He and I weren't real close friends, but I respected his knowledge of the game. He and McPherson had a good view on the game.

SP: You must have felt a lot of pressure. Dothan didn't want you to play anymore.

JC: Oh yeah, a tremendous amount of pressure. Shaughnessy came down here. He was the commissioner and he was a baseball man. He understood that it could happen to anybody. He got involved because it was fixin' to break up the league. (Note: I believe Clifton meant George Trautman, not Frank Shaughnessy. Trautman was commissioner of minor league baseball at the time).

SP: Five days after the incident, you threw a no-hitter.

JC: Yep, the next start. I probably pitched better (after the incident) than I did before, record-wise at least.

SP: You also lead the league with 22 wins.

JC: Actually, I had 25. I don't know how the records got confused but I was 25-7 that season. That's counting play-offs.

SP: After the incident, did the league tell you not to pitch, or just not to pitch against Dothan.

JC: No, I took my regular turns. I played the outfield when I wasn't pitching. I didn't miss any starts because of it. There was one ball game I didn't play in, the next night after (the incident). I just didn't feel like playing.

SP: When you would come to Dothan after that was there any trouble from the fans?

JC: Well they gave me some trouble in the papers and on the radio, but at the ballpark, no. There was a lot of conversation about it, a lot of publicity about it. That fellow Smith (Dothan owner, Charles Smith) said a lot about what he was going to do, but he found out he couldn't run it (the team) like he was running a small town and it died down. It was the media in Dothan that was making all the fuss about it. They never talked to me at all. Everything they were talking was hearsay. That made it that much worse.

SP: Just a short time later the Chase Riddle incident (Riddle punched an umpire) almost caused the league to collapse again.

JC: You know, Class D umpires weren't necessarily the best, but you had to adjust to it. I reckon Chase just got fed up. He was kind of high-strung and had played at higher levels. I guess he had been used to better umpires. Chase was a good fellow, top-notch. Of all the players I played with, he and John McPherson were my favorites.

SP: At the end of 1951, you were one of the league's best players. Why did you stop playing?

JC: I just quit. That year took a toll on me. I just played a little pick up ball here around here with friends.

After the war, I had a chance to play for Buffalo in 1947. Foster "Babe" Ganzel, who had been the general manager at St. Paul, was a good friend of Paul Richards, who was with the Bisons from 1947-49. They tried to get me to go up there. Babe was a good friend and had done me a lot of favors, but I had to tell him that I couldn't accept the offer. I had two kids ready to start school, and I didn't want to take my children up to Buffalo and have them start school up there. I had a job as a school principal then, but after a couple years, they told me I had to go back to school and get a certificate, so I decided that I'd find something else to do. I went all the way through the education college at the University of Georgia, so I'll tell you, I learned more in two months of classroom work than in all four years at the university. I served on the local school board here for 31 years, and chaired it for quite a few of them, so I know what good teachers are all about.

I've done a little bit of most everything. When I went to work in the shipyard in Jacksonville, I didn't know what a pipe fabricating shop was all about. I went to work in there, and in 16 months I had 30 people working for me. It was a matter of applying myself. I guarantee you that 12 months after I started there, I could fabricate a pipe as good as anybody. I had a job at Farmer's Gin Warehouse since 1949, and I worked there for 38 years, up until the late 1980's. I started as a bookkeeper and wound up an executive vice-president. During the year when peanuts were going to market, I'd have to work extra. There were a lot of times my wife wouldn't see me very much at all. September, October, November, I'd probably get 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night. I managed to accustom myself to it, but it was awful hard to start off with it. It got tougher and tougher as I got on in years. It really didn't bother me too much until I got to be 63 or 64 years old. I really liked my job and liked the person I worked with and that makes a lot of difference.