DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker says about Jay Justin Clarke — and friend, this one is worth every mile. Now picture this: June 15, 1902. A Sunday.
And already, before a single pitch is thrown, something is off. The game was supposed to be played in Corsicana, Texas. But Corsicana had what were called Blue Laws — laws that flat-out prohibited the playing of baseball on a Sunday.
So the whole operation picked up and moved. Down the road to Ennis, Texas. A baseball field in Ennis, Texas, that nobody can quite find today, because history swallowed it whole.
The Corsicana Oil Citys were facing the Texarkana Casketmakers. Now, I'll let that matchup settle for just a moment. The Oil Citys and the Casketmakers.
Only in Texas, only in 1902, do you get a rivalry that poetic. What happened next belongs in the category of things you'd call a tall tale — except the record books won't let you. Jay Justin Clarke, playing for the Oil Citys that day, stepped to the plate again and again.
And again. And again. When the dust cleared, Clarke had hit eight home runs in a single game.
Eight. He also tallied sixteen runs batted in. In one game.
Professional Minor League Baseball. Both records still stand — to this day — as all-time Minor League records. The final score?
Corsicana Oil Citys, fifty-one. Texarkana Casketmakers, three. Now here's the detail that makes a person tilt their head.
That fence — the fence on that vanished field in Ennis — was estimated to be less than two hundred and ten feet from home plate. The marker's honest about that. It doesn't hide it.
Those home runs had some help from some short fences on a relocated Sunday game in a town that nobody planned to be in. But here's the thing about records: they don't care how they got made. They just care that nobody's broken them.
And more than a hundred years later, on a field that has been lost to history, Jay Justin Clarke's eight home runs and sixteen runs batted in are still sitting right there at the top of the ledger. Some records are built to last. And some days, even the ones that weren't planned turn out to be the ones nobody ever forgets.
What the marker says
On June 15, 1902, at a baseball field in Ennis, Texas, Jay Justin Clarke set two single game professional Minor League Baseball records. The game was unusual because it was scheduled to be played in Corsicana, but was relocated to Ennis due to Corsicana's "Blue Laws" which prohibited the playing of the game on a Sunday. The Corsicana Oil Citys beat the Texarkana Casketmakers 51-3 that day. Clarke, who played for the Oil Citys, hit eight home runs and tallied sixteen runs batted in, records that still stand as all-time Minor League records. The actual field has been lost to history, but played a major role in Clarke's records as the fence was estimated to be less than 210 feet from home plate.